A FIRST-TIME mother who felt “powerless” after her baby was born premature said she was given hope by medics who helped her to breastfeed.

Kimberly Bowman delivered son Joseph O’Donoghue at 26 weeks after developing life-threatening complications during her pregnancy.

She said she was “shocked and bewildered” by the early birth and found it incredibly hard expressing milk after her traumatic experience.

But thanks to the care of the John Radcliffe Hospital’s infant feeding team, Ms Bowman said her son is stronger and healthier after having breast milk, and has nominated the medics for our Hospital Heroes Team Award.

Ms Bowman, a monitoring and evaluation advisor at Oxfam, said: “It was shocking because I had never been through a health crisis like this before. So many friends were having babies and from the outside it looks straightforward. I was expecting a completely normal pregnancy.”

Ms Bowman, who is married to Wallingford School teacher Tom O’Donoghue, was admitted to the Headington hospital on April 2 after her blood pressure worried her GP.

The 32-year-old developed severe pre-eclampsia, a condition which causes symptoms like swelling, headaches and changes in vision, and was diagnosed with Hellp syndrome, a rare liver and blood clotting disorder.

She had an emergency caesarian section under general anaesthetic 11 days later, giving birth to Joseph who weighed just under 2lbs.

Ms Bowman, of Gaisford Road, Cowley, said: “Tom and I were both trying to keep our cool. Once we found out that Joseph could be born at any minute, that was pretty terrifying. The first few weeks were really rough.”

Ms Bowman said breast-feeding Joseph, who left hospital on August 10, was only possible thanks to infant feeding lead Gillan Denton, Leane Beauchamp and speech and language therapist Zoe Gordon based at the hospital’s newborn care unit.

She said the team were by her side as she tried to breast-feed Joseph, with the trio showing the mother how to express milk for the first time and helping Mr O’Donoghue feed his son from a bottle.

Ms Bowman added: “I found it a painful, confusing, lonely, sleep-stealing process that I had never heard anyone talk about.

“They were just incredibly lovely people. If I lived almost anywhere else in the world it would not have happened in the way that it did. It would have had a much worse ending.”

Ms Denton said: “This is such a wonderful thing for Kimberly and Tom to have done and we feel very overwhelmed to have been nominated.”