Mum recalls terrifying moment ‘healthy’ newborn Blake started vomiting blood – and bleeding from his nose and bottom

A mother described the heartbreaking moment her “healthy” newborn began throwing up blood, which left physicians perplexed.

When her 37-year-old son began to have respiratory difficulties, Sunderland resident Kate Clifford claimed she was certain her kid was going to die.

Even though Kate had a “textbook” pregnancy, Blake, who was born in March of this year, had a 24-hour ventilator stay.

The doctors called when they noticed that Blake was having trouble breathing and had cyanosis, which is characterized by blue or grey lips or skin.

When Blake was removed off the ventilator, the financial controller attempted to milk him.

She was horrified when he began vomiting blood and bleeding from his butt, necessitating an emergency blood transfusion and a transfer to Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) for specialized care.

“He was just really fussy, and I couldn’t get him to take another feed,” Kate, who was with Blake’s 33-year-old father, Carl, said.

He just threw up all this blood as I was holding him.

Within twenty minutes, there were two more episodes of him bringing up the blood, and there was a crazy rush of doctors because it was gushing out of his nose and all over the place.

Before being blue-lighted to the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) at the RVI, Kate reported that Blake changed a pale yellow lemon color and required an emergency blood transfusion.

According to her, two additional tubes were placed into his body to drain and replenish his blood levels, and he was fed via a nasogastric tube.

The cause of the blood was unknown to them. According to Kate, he was continuing losing it and was spitting up, which was coming from his butt.

There was a continuous bag of blood leaking out of him as they continued to drain it.

They were keeping an eye on him and replenishing his blood levels as needed because they were worried that if they operated on him, whatever was causing the bleeding might cause him to bleed out.

Kate was afraid that Blake would bleed out in the hospital because the doctors couldn’t figure out what was causing it at first and told her that they had never seen it in a newborn because of the volume of blood. However, they subsequently found that Blake had stomach ulcers that were the source of the bleeding.

According to Kate, the medical personnel was outstanding. Blake was given medication to lessen the inflammation of his stomach lining caused by gastritis and ulcers, and a feeding tube was inserted straight into his colon to prevent the problem from getting worse.

Eight-month-old Blake is now content and healthy following his release, and Kate is excited to spend his first Christmas with her other five-year-old son, Nolan.

For the first two and a half weeks he was there, I honestly thought he was going to die, Kate recalled.

Physicians reported that while they had observed some bleeding in babies, it was not as severe as Blake’s.

“It’s okay, we’ll give him more blood,” they said, but I couldn’t help but wonder: How long can you just keep giving someone blood? What’s causing his bleeding? What’s the matter?

I still find it hard to believe he’s at home with us sometimes, but at first, no one could explain what was wrong because no one had any experience with it. Instead, they just stood there and said, “Well, we haven’t seen it before, and these are the specialists.”

According to Kate, there was a suggestion that Blake might have swallowed something that was causing the bleeding, but this was untrue.

His X-rays and scans were clear, but when he was nine days old, a procedure was performed to place a scope down his throat in order to identify the source of the bleeding.

According to Kate, they had never seen it in a newborn before.

They weren’t really opening him up; they were just doing everything they could.

They would have had to perform significant surgery to cut him from hip to hip if they had discovered anything, but we were really fortunate that they were able to see all of the ulcers when they used the scope.

According to Kate, it was found that the blood was coming from two sizable gastritis-related stomach ulcers.

Blake had previously need four blood transfusions, so she was extremely relieved when the pediatric gastroenterologist informed her that he had never seen ulcers in a newborn, even if she claimed the diagnosis was unexpected.

Kate claimed that the medical staff was amazing during Blake’s stay, and they made arrangements for her to stay at Crawford House, a Home from Home operated by the charity The Sick Children’s Trust.

This relieved her of all the worry because her other son, Nolan, could join her and they were only a few minutes away from Blake’s bedside.

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

So, I don’t believe I realized how much Crawford House helped us until after they gave us so much assistance.

Blake was given medication to lessen his gastritis and ulcers, biopsies were taken for additional testing, and a feeding tube was inserted straight into his colon to prevent the situation from getting worse.

After a second procedure in which the scope was reinserted and it was discovered that the inflammation had decreased, Blake was sent back to Sunderland for one more day before being released.

Blake and his brother Nolan are best friends, and he is now bursting with vitality and soaring through life after continuing to take his medication at home.

The family has already decorated two of the three trees in anticipation of Christmas, and Kate claimed that her time with Blake has inspired her to appreciate the small things in life.

You simply spend your days so busy that you occasionally pause to ask yourself, “How did I get so lucky?” “I feel so fortunate,” Kate remarked.

It still seems so unbelievable, and I consider myself fortunate to have this result when so many others do not. I do not take it for granted. Blake simply accepts everything as it comes.

Go to sickchildrenstrust.org to learn more about The Sick Children’s Trust.

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