‘My baby was vomiting blood in a case that baffled doctors – I feel blessed to be celebrating his first Christmas’

A mother who was convinced her baby was going to die after he started vomiting blood in a case doctors said they had “not seen in a newborn” feels blessed to be celebrating his first Christmas.

Kate Clifford, 37, a financial controller from Sunderland, said she had a “textbook” pregnancy and delivery with her second son Blake in March – but soon after birth, he started struggling with his breathing and needed to be placed on a ventilator for 24 hours.

After coming off the ventilator, Kate breastfed him, but he suddenly started vomiting blood and bleeding from his bottom, leading to an emergency blood transfusion and a transfer to Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle for specialist care.

With doctors initially unable to determine the cause and telling Kate “they’d not seen it before in a newborn” due to the amount of blood, she feared Blake would “bleed out” in hospital – but they later discovered he had ulcers in his stomach which were causing the bleeding.

Kate said the hospital staff were “amazing” and Blake was given medication to reduce the ulcers and gastritis – inflammation of the stomach lining – along with a feeding tube which was placed directly into his bowel to avoid worsening the condition.

Now, after being discharged, eight-month-old Blake is happy and healthy and Kate is looking forward to celebrating his first Christmas alongside her other son Nolan, now five.

Kate told PA Real Life: “Honestly, for the first two-and-a-half weeks he was there, I was convinced he was going to die.

“Doctors said they’d seen small amounts of bleeding in newborns, but not to the level that Blake was.

“They were saying, ‘It’s okay, we’ll give him more blood’, but I just thought, ‘How long can you just keep giving somebody blood? Why is he bleeding? What’s wrong?’

“Nobody could tell me what was wrong at first, nobody had any experience of it, so to be just stood there and told, ‘Well, we’ve not seen it before’ – and these are the specialists – I still sometimes can’t believe he’s at home with us.”

When Kate fell pregnant with her second child Blake, she said everything was “textbook” and she gave birth on March 28, the day before his due date, at Sunderland Royal Hospital.

However, doctors soon noticed that Blake had cyanosis – blue or grey skin or lips – and was struggling to breathe, meaning he needed to be placed on a ventilator for 24 hours.

Kate said she started to breastfeed him after he came off the ventilator, but “out of nowhere”, he suddenly started vomiting blood – which was “incredibly alarming” for her and Blake’s father Carl, 33.

“He was just super fussy, and I couldn’t get him to take another feed,” she explained.

“I had hold of him in my arms and he just vomited all this blood.

“It was coming out of his nose, it was just everywhere, so there was a mad rush of doctors and there were another two bouts of him bringing up the blood within 20 minutes.”

Kate said Blake turned a “pale yellow lemon” colour and needed an emergency blood transfusion before being blue-lighted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the RVI.

She said he was fed through a nasogastric tube and had another two tubes inserted into his body to drain and “top up” his blood levels.

“They didn’t know what was causing the blood. He was still losing it, he was spitting up, it was coming out of his bum,” Kate said.

“The blood kept coming up and they were draining it, so he had a constant bag of blood coming out of him.

“They were topping his blood levels back up as and when he needed it and monitoring him because, the concern was, if they took him in for surgery, whatever was causing that bleed, he could bleed out.”

Kate said it was suggested that Blake had perhaps swallowed something which was causing the bleeding, but this was not the case.

Since his X-rays and scans came back as clear, he underwent a procedure to have a scope put down his throat to determine the cause of the bleeding when he was nine days old.

“They said they’d not seen it before in a newborn,” Kate said.

“They were just trying everything they could, without fully opening him up.

“Had they found anything, they would have then had to cut him, hip to hip, which was major surgery… but we were extremely lucky because when they got in there with the scope, they could see all the ulcers.”

Kate said it was discovered that the bleeding was coming from two large ulcers in his stomach, caused by gastritis.

Blake had needed four blood transfusions up to this point – and although she said the diagnosis was a shock and the paediatric gastroenterologist told her he had “never seen ulcers in a newborn”, she felt “massive relief”.

During Blake’s admission, Kate said the hospital staff were “phenomenal” and they arranged for her to stay at Crawford House, a “Home from Home” run by The Sick Children’s Trust charity.

This meant her other son Nolan could join her, and they were just minutes from Blake’s bedside, taking “all the stress away”.

“When your baby is poorly and you don’t know why, and you don’t know if he’s going to die or if he’s just going to bleed out, I just thought, I need to be there (with him), I can’t let him die on his own,” Kate said.

“So being there at Crawford House, I don’t think I realised what they did for us until afterwards – they provided so much support.”

The doctors took biopsies for further testing, gave Blake medication to reduce the gastritis and ulcers, and placed a feeding tube directly into his bowel to avoid “aggravating” the condition further.

The scope was re-inserted during a second procedure, revealing the inflammation had reduced, and Blake was then transferred back to Sunderland for an extra day before being discharged.

After continuing to take medication at home, Blake is now full of energy and “flying through life”, and he and his brother Nolan are best friends.

The family are excited for Christmas ahead and have even decorated two out of three trees, and Kate said her experience with Blake has encouraged her to focus on the “simple things” in life.

“Day to day, you’re just so busy, and then it’s in those moments of reflection where you just think, ‘How did I get so lucky?’ I’m just so blessed,” Kate said.

“It still feels so surreal and I’m lucky to have this outcome when so many don’t – and that’s something I don’t take for granted. Blake just takes everything in his stride.”

To find out more about The Sick Children’s Trust, visit: sickchildrenstrust.org.