For two hours, a grieving mum cradled the apparently lifeless body of her newborn son – and all her caresses and whispered words were rewarded when the baby suddenly began to move.
Born prematurely at 27 weeks and weighing just one kilo, doctors said Jamie Ogg had no chance of survival. Unlike his twin sister Emily, he was not breathing and after 20 minutes of trying to resuscitate him, Jamie was declared dead.
His limp little body was handed to his mum Kate and dad David so they could grieve and say their goodbyes to him in private.
But after two hours of being spoken to, touched and cuddled, he began showing signs of life. And after being given breast milk on Kate’s finger, he began breathing regularly.
The delighted mum said on Thursday: “He’s a little fighter, as is his sister, and they are both doing amazingly well.”
She added: “I took my gown off and arranged Jamie on my chest and just held him. He wasn’t moving at all and we just started talking to him. We told him what his name was and that he had a sister. We told him things we wanted to do with him. Then, I felt him move as if he were startled. He started gasping more regularly.”
Kate said, “I thought, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’ A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle. Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger.” Kate said they got a message to their doctor, insisting Jamie was showing signs of life, but he sent back a midwife who told them these movements were natural reflexes and that there was no way Jamie could still be alive.
But Kate and David, who live in Sydney, refused to give up on their baby boy. She recalled: “I said to my husband, ‘What if he lives? We could be the luckiest parents in the world’.
Kate added, “I gave Jamie some breast milk on my finger, he took it and started regular breathing. At that point the doctor came back, got a stethoscope, listened to Jamie’s chest and just kept shaking his head. He said, ‘I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it.’”
