When little Ella was born six weeks early with no complications, her parents Steph and Nick, counted themselves very lucky. But just four weeks later everything suddenly changed.

Ella fell ill with what at first seemed to be a simple cold, but when she became very snotty and developed a crackly chest, Steph knew something wasn’t right. 

Ella was rushed to hospital where she was diagnosed with bronchiolitis, but at that point the doctors felt that it was safe for Ella to go home. The next few hours were terrifying: “She cried the whole night – and she’s not usually an unsettled baby,” Steph says. “In the morning, while I was on the phone to my husband, she suddenly stopped crying. Then she went really grey and pale. It was like all the life went out of her. Her arms and legs went limp, her lips went blue and her head dropped back. I screamed down the phone.”

Ella was rushed back to hospital and had to be put on life support to allow her tiny body to use all its energy to fight the infection. "It was so distressing seeing our baby girl connected to so many tubes and wires," recalls Steph. "I think Nick and I were in a state of shock."

Ella’s road to recovery was rocky. The standard treatment for bronchiolitis wasn’t working and a secondary infection caused her to develop pneumonia and for her right lung to collapse.

Seeing their tiny daughter fight for life was a heartbreaking experience for Steph and Nick. “I’m so glad she won’t have any memory of it but Nick and I will be haunted by it for life,” Steph says. “I just never realised that something that seemed to be a simple cold could affect my baby so seriously.”