Teddy Gadsby: Family's anguish as baby dies from group B strep

Teddy Gadsby was born with no complications but died of group B strep at five weeks old

A mother who lost her five-week-old son to a rare illness has said she and her husband are devastated, but will fight to raise awareness of the condition.

Teddy Gadsby died in the arms of heartbroken mother Amy Wilkins and father Jack Gadsby at Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in June.

Baby Teddy, from Derby, developed late onset group B streptococcus.

Ms Wilkins said: "When Teddy died, we knew we wanted to raise as much awareness as we could about this."

Amy Wilkins, 29, said she had no complications during her pregnancy

At 36 weeks, she was offered to take part in a University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust trial to see if she was a carrier of the bacteria - commonly known as group B strep.

Her result came back positive and she was told she would be given antibiotics during the birth.

But Ms Wilkins said her labour was extremely fast and there was no time to administer antibiotics.

She was then monitored for 12 hours, as is normal procedure with strep B, and was discharged as doctors felt both mother and baby were doing well.

Teddy was fine for the next four weeks and his older sibling Ronnie, two, was adapting well in his new role as big brother.

But Ms Wilkins, 29, said her "perfect" family life "all changed" after she noticed Teddy was off his bottle and still had not woken up for a feed at midnight.

She then checked his temperature, which was high at 39.8C (104F).

The family were settling in well with the new addition

Teddy was taken to the accident and emergency department at the Royal Derby Hospital but then took a turn for the worse before he arrived.

Ms Wilkins said: "In that short drive, Teddy completely changed. His breathing resembled more of a grunt and his skin had gone really mottled.

"Within 10 minutes of arriving, there was 20 doctors and nurses around us. That's when it dawned on me that something was seriously wrong."

After a course of antibiotics, Teddy was sedated and under a blue light transfer, he was sent to the QMC and placed into intensive care.

Group B strep in babies - what to look for

Symptoms of a group B strep infection can develop up to three months after birth.

People should call 999 or go to A&E if a baby develops any of these symptoms:

• Being floppy or unresponsive

• Grunting when breathing, or working hard to breathe when you look at their chest or stomach

• Very fast or slow breathing

• An unusually high or low temperature

• Changes in their skin colour or blotchy skin

• Not feeding well or vomiting milk up

• An unusually fast or slow heart rate

Source: NHS

"Even though he was so poorly, we got told on the Friday that he would make a full recovery and we went from complete despair to getting our hopes up that he would be OK," Ms Wilkins added.

But doctors then told the couple there was a lack of oxygen to Teddy's brain and the "best case scenario" was he would pull through but be "severely disabled".

"The doctors on the Saturday pulled us into a room and told us they didn't think he would survive," Ms Wilkins said.

"Early Monday morning his breathing wasn't right and they told us he had seizures and his brain was shutting down.

"We didn't want him to be in any pain."

The nursery nurse said it would not have made any difference to Teddy's condition if Ms Wilkins had been given the antibiotics during labour.

Teddy (left) with big brother Ronnie

The couple then had the painful task of contacting their wider family and close friends to let them know it was time to say their goodbyes.

After the final visits, Ms Wilkins and Mr Gadsby agreed for Teddy's life support to be turned off and he took his last breath cradled in their arms.

"As a parent, there won't be a more horrific experience that you will go through. My world came crashing down," she said.

"There's no words to describe the feeling of having to not only make that decision to take him off life support but then having to watch him take his last breaths.

"It will never leave us, never."

'Teddy is there'

The couple then had to break the news of Teddy's death to brother Ronnie.

"We didn't know what to tell him," Ms Wilkins said.

"We said that Teddy had gone up to the sky to look over him. We were given a book explaining how to break it to him in a way he could understand.

"It was about how a bird couldn't play his with his brothers and sisters any more and he had flown up there to be bright star.

"He understands a little bit, he waves to the sky and says that Teddy is there."

Teddy's big brother Ronnie

Ms Wilkins said the campaign to raise awareness and fundraising for a support charity had led to other women getting in touch to say they had asked to get tested.

The pair organised a sponsored walk from Jack's home town of Ilkeston to Pride Park, the home of Derby County last month.

They set out to raise £500 but with the bucket collections alone, they had raised more than £2,250.

The total fundraiser stands at more than £10,000.

"We thought that his death cannot be in vain - it won't bring him back but we had to do something and stop another family going through this if we can," Ms Wilkins added.

Dozens turned out for a sponsored walk from Mr Gadsby's home town of Ilkeston to Derby County's Pride Park stadium