A COUPLE today gave thanks for nine months of happiness after the baby "who touched everybody's hearts" lost his battle for life.

Tiny Leon Joseph McNally weighed just 3lb 1oz when he was born 10 weeks premature on April 27 last year.

Complications at birth left him starved of oxygen and his parents Joanne McNally and Malcolm Marsden, of Duke Street, Oswaldtwistle, were told Leon had fluid on the brain.

The tiny infant spent a week on a ventilator and fought for life for nine months before dying on Saturday.

Malcolm, 36, who works as a butcher in Burnley, said: "From day one we were told the first 24 hours were critical. Then something else would happen and they would say he might not pull through. But he pulled through everything on his own.

"I wouldn't swap the nine months for anything. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

"Even though we were told that it would probably be better if he hadn't been resuscitated at birth, I'm glad they did.

"It's been nine months of pleasure with him, mixed with pain."

Joanne added: "He just came and touched everybody's hearts. Even grown men would say he was cute."

She told of the early struggle in Leon's life: "They had to get his weight up to 5lb so he could have an operation to drain the fluid." Leon had to be fed through a tube because he couldn't swallow properly but he battled through and after seven weeks he had reached the 5lb target.

Following the operation in June at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury he returned to Queens Park hospital.

"He was seven weeks old. I remember it well because he had his first bath," said 32-year-old Joanne.

Leon was then put on medication because he kept being sick, and a brain scan revealed he was having fits.

He was allowed home but had several spells in hospital. Then last week the youngster got into difficulties with his breathing.

"His breathing just became shallow but it wasn't unusual. Some days he would breathe fast and other days he didn't," said Joanne, a care assistant.

After treatment at Blackburn Royal Infirmary, the couple decided against putting Leon on a ventilator and took him home, where he died.

"We didn't want him ventilating. We had already been asked several times and we always said he had been through enough," said Joanne.

A Requiem Mass will take place at 2.15pm on Monday at St Mary's RC Church, in Catlow Hall Street, Oswaldtwistle, followed by interment in Immanuel churchyard.