Worthing mum behind Employer with Heart initiative plans run to raise awareness of the premature baby policy

Kerry Myles will cover 26km in total, as her son Alfie was born at 26 weeks, and she will be stopping at 5km intervals every three hours, to signify the times she was able to touch him each day in the neonatal intensive care unit.

The aim is to raise awareness of what people go through when a baby is born early and to urge employers to sign up to the charter, because, she says, 'no parent should spend precious leave unable to be with their baby'.

Even now, four years on, it is sometimes difficult for Kerry to comprehend what happened to her. She went on a five-day mini break to America just after 20-week scan but was taken ill from the plane on the return journey. She was admitted to hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, in October 2019 at 23 weeks and 5 days pregnant.

Kerry said: "The palliative care team explained what might happen if I was to give birth then, four months earlier than my due date. After 16 long days in hospital on an emotional rollercoaster of false alarms and instability, my son Alfie was born very suddenly and traumatically at 26 weeks gestation, weighing just 2lb 2oz (1.01kg).

"I had to wait five hours before I was even able to see Alfie and was then returned to a hospital room on my own, unable to be with my newborn baby while the doctors tried to stabilise him. On day three of Alfie’s life, I was able to hold him for the first time, but this was for less than ten minutes as he was unable to keep his temperature where his skin hadn’t fully formed yet.

"Most of my contact with him for the first few months was at three-hour intervals through the portholes of the incubator. He spent 50 days on oxygen and 88 nights in NICU, where all I had was a teddy from his incubator to take home to bed with me each night.

"It’s impossible to describe the physical and emotional trauma I endured but even harder to comprehend that for so many parents, it’s how they spend their precious maternity / paternity leave."