A MUM has hailed the ‘brilliant’ maternity staff who managed to revive her baby girl, who spent the first 26 minutes of her life without a heartbeat.

Little Isla Simpson was immediately given CPR when midwives at Burnley General Hospital realised she was not breathing, and they had almost given up when her heart finally started.

Although her daughter has been left with some brain damage, mum Becky said she still feels like the ‘luckiest mum in the world’ after Isla was allowed to return home this week.

Experts said it was ‘extraordinary’ that Isla, who was born after 39 weeks, had survived.

Becky, from Clayton-le-Moors, said: “All the way through my pregancy things were fine, but the moment she came out the nurses realised she wasn’t moving or breathing.

“They pulled the emergency cord and suddenly about 20 or 30 people were in the ward.

“Suddenly I was watching them give her CPR and it was terrifying. It went 20 minutes, at which point they said they usually stop, but luckily they kept going and her heartbeat came back.”

Following the birth on September 21, Isla spent a week on a ventilator in the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit, when it was still touch-and-go as to whether she would pull through.

Becky, 20, said: “I saw her a few hours after the birth and it was heartbreaking because she was completely sedated and still really struggling to breathe.

“She looked blue and her organs were starting to die because of the lack of oxygen.

“The doctors thought she wasn’t going to survive and that whole week was the hardest of my life. Every day we were told to prepare ourselves for the worst.

“But once she started taking breaths without the ventilator the doctors felt they could try removing the machine, and I even decided at that point to let her go if she couldn’t do it, because the ventilator was down her throat and was causing her so much pain.”

Isla managed to keep breathing when the ventilator was removed and was kept in hospital for a further four weeks before she was allowed to go home to Sparth Road, where Becky lives with her mum Michelle, a nurse, who was with the pair for much of their time in hospital.

Yesterday Becky heaped praise on all the nurses and doctors at the Women and Newborn Centre that helped save Isla’s life.

She said: “I’m just so grateful for what they did. They were all brilliant for the whole time we were there.”

Becky, a former pupil at Rhyddings Business and Enterprise School in Oswaldtwistle, said Isla was likely to have cerebral palsy, but the severity of her brain damage, which was caused by the lack of oxygen to her brain, will not be clear until her body develops. She also has difficulty swallowing so is still reliant on a feeding tube, as well as three different medications.

The single mum added: “It just feels like a miracle that I’ve got her home and we’ll try and do as much as we can for her by taking her to all sorts of different classes and not just sit her in front of the telly.

“She might not be able to walk or talk but I think she can still have a good life.

“When she’s awake she’s very alert and reacts when I talk to her, but she’s here and that’s the main thing.”

Doctors could not explain why Isla’s heart was not working when she was born, and Becky said: “I still question why it happened to me, because I gave up smoking, didn’t drink and made sure I was exercising and eating healthily. I did everything I could for her.”

Dr Tom Smith, health columnist for the Lancashire Telegraph, said: “The heart will have been beating right up until the point of delivery because it would have been monitored during labour.

“By carrying out cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), the staff have effectively managed to replace the baby’s heart beat to some extent, and got the blood flowing enough to keep the brain oxygenated.

“The crucial thing is the time between the heart stopping and getting the resuscitation started, because as long as you get the resuscitation going quickly, you can keep someone alive through CPR for quite a long time, although 26 minutes does sound extraordinary. They must have got there very quickly and done an expert job with the CPR.

“I’ve been a GP for 40 years and worked in obstetrics for a year and never known anything like this.”

He said the most common cause for babies losing their heartbeat during birth was the umbilical cord being wrapped around the baby’s neck, but this does not appear to have happened in this case. A less common cause is the heart’s failure to cope with the stress of birth, he said.

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust has been named as the ‘maternity service of the year’ for 2014 by the Royal College of Midwives.

Angela O'Toole, midwife matron at Burnley, said: “All the staff in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at ELHT used their expertise and professionalism in ensuring Isla had safe, personal and effective care.

“The staff supported Becky through a difficult time and we are overwhelmed that she has taken the opportunity to publicise this. Everyone in the unit will miss them, but it’s obviously brilliant for Becky and Isla to be able to go home as a family and we wish them all the best for the future.”