Baby Harry Law completes 6 generations of a family in Newport, Gwent. Great, great, great, grandmother Gladys is 91, great, great, grandmother Pamela is 74, great, grandmother Wendy is 54, grandmother Lisa is 36 and Harry’s Mum Jessica is 19 years old.  The family now has 13 grandchildren, 27 great grandchildren and 15 great, great grandchildren and Harry makes the first great, great, great grandson.

Former midwife Margaret Jones from Wiltshire had to deliver her great grandaughter because the duty midwife was not able to arrive in time. Grandaughter Kathy called 90 year old Margaret who lives next door for help. Kathy had returned from a walk with her husband and son Dylan when her labour started. Margaret received a call to help whilst they were waiting for the hospital midwife to arrive. 50 years after leaving the profession the great grandmother delivered baby Carys 20 minutes before the midwife arrived. The new baby weighed a healthy 7lbs and 7ozs.

A family from Warwickshire are saying thank you to medics after they spotted a life threatening condition in their 8 day old baby. Ellis Hobbs was born with an extremely rare condition called TAPVD or total anomalous pulmonary venous drainage where veins take blood to the wrong side of the heart. Ellis was taken into surgery when he was just 8 days old and had a 4 hour operation. Ellis was able to use one of just 20 beds in the heart unit of Birmingham’s Children’s Hospital. Medics at Birmingham Children’s Hospital managed to ‘rewire’ his heart and Ellis who is now three months old, has made a complete recovery.

A recent study claims that children who are breastfed are likely to have fewer behavioural problems. Parents who breastfeed for 4 months are apparently 2.5 times less likely to experience behaviour problems with their children by the time they are 5 years of age. The research suggests that only 6% of children breastfeeding had issues compared with 16 % of those on formula milk. Experts have commented that the nutrients such as fatty acid in the breast milk may have a lasting effect on the child’s brain development. The researchers used data of more than 10,000 mothers and their children.

There are some wonderful pregnancy apps available for children and new mums. We have selected a few to help you gain the most from this magical time:

For the children…..

Inkstrumental – You can create your own band from a range of sounds and characters.

Taking Carl – This provides endless entertainment as you can tickle, pinch and poke Carl to make him repeat everything that you say in a hilarious voice.

ABC Wildlife – This is more of an educational app which provides interesting facts about animals with lots of videos to watch too.

Jack and the Beanstalk Interactive Book – This is the classic story where you can read along with the text and there are lots of additional activate and games to play.

For the Mums…..

Baby ESP – You can record all of the information that you want to remember about your baby. This log book allows you to note sleeping patterns, eating and medicines being taken etc.

Baby Monitor & Alarm – This logs your baby’s sleep pattern and attempts to soothe baby when he cries.

Relax with Andrew Johnson – Hypnotherapist Andrew Johnson eases your stress levels by guiding you through exercises.

New womb song classes are all the rage to boost language skills and to help mums to be develop a closer bond with the child. Mums can learn how to sing in the classes and learn a range of songs and lullabies. The songs are very simple and from all over the world. New mums to be find the whole experience relaxing and quite uplifting.

A 58 year old mother Carole Hobson from Kent had IVF treatment which led to her giving birth to twins. Matthew and Freida were born by emergency Caesarean on Christmas Eve making Carole one of the oldest mothers of twins in the country. The twins each weighed 3lb 3oz when they were born nine weeks prematurely at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham. Carole said the babies were conceived after she travelled to India for a fifth course of IVF treatment. Mother and babies are doing very well.

At first it is hard to tell if your baby is too hot or too cold. They may have too many layers or too few on for the weather outside or for room temperature. Here a few helpful hints to guide you:
If you are feeling too hot or too cold then your baby is likely to be experiencing the same.  You should add or remove layers accordingly.
Your baby should always have one more layer of clothing than you are wearing.
You can check baby by putting your fingers down the back of baby’s neck and make sure baby is warm but not sweaty.
Before long you will easily be adding a blanket when baby is chilly and taking a layer off when baby’s cheeks are a little flush!

 

For those parents that cannot decide what to call their baby, there are lots of apps offering different kinds of baby names. There are apps which provide 10,000 baby names and others with 50,000 Baby names and there is bound to be an app to meet the needs of the pickiest parents. Once the new baby is born there are lots of apps to help new parents order each day and each week’s events. Parents can record the baby’s growth, feeding patterns, immunisations and developmental milestones.

 

Sisters Nikki and Emma Rotheram were both brought into Liverpool Women’s Hospital on the same day and had babies Libby and Luke in rooms next to each other, just hours apart. Nikki was due on the 14th and Emma on the 17^th February. Luke weighed in at 7lb 10oz and Libby at 6lb 10oz.  The sisters said that the whole family is so happy and their mum spent all her time running between the two rooms in the hospital. Both babies are doing really well and the parents are looking forward to having all their important birthdays together in the future. The chances of two sisters having their babies on the same day, in rooms next to each other, is very rare.