Help more babies make it home for Christmas
Support vital research to help prevent premature birth and save lives, like Elsie's.
"We should have been celebrating our little girl’s arrival. Instead, we watched her fight for her life in hospital. At one point, we were told the chances of her surviving were one in 1,000.” — Chris, Elsie's dad.
Tragically, more than 1,000 babies die each year after being born too soon, and for those who do survive, they can face lifelong complications. Yet despite its devastating impact research into the causes of preterm birth and how it could be prevented remains underfunded.
That’s why this Christmas we urgently need your help to raise £10,000 towards the final funding needed to support research to help prevent preterm labour – helping to save lives and give more babies the chance to enjoy many precious Christmases with their families.
Elsie's story
The neonatal unit became Debi and Chris’s world as they watched their daughter, Elsie, face one battle after another after being born 17 weeks early. Ordinary life and special occasions passed them by and they feared Christmas would be the same. But then, at 4pm on Christmas Eve, 211 days after her birth, Elsie was finally well enough to go home.
It was everything we had wished for, but Elsie was still incredibly vulnerable. We had to redefine what ‘normal’ means for our family. That’s why research to prevent premature birth means so much. It gives us hope that fewer babies like Elsie will have to start life fighting to survive simply because they were born too soon.
Developing a new treatment
Learn how your gift will support researchers at University College London who are developing a new treatment to help prevent preterm labour in women at high-risk of giving birth too soon.
A gift this Christmas could help save lives
If donations from this appeal exceed the remaining amount needed to fund this work, any additional funds will be used to support other urgently needed research for babies and children.