The First Breath: Olivia Gordon tells how doctors saved her son

Thanks to a risky operation in utero and five months in neonatal care six years ago, her son Joel survived.

Now the Oxford-based mum-of-two has written a moving memoir about her experiences.

In The First Breath, journalist Ms Gordon explores the female experience of medicine through her own personal story and intimate case histories of other mothers’ high-risk births.

Six years ago in London the health journalist’s scan revealed that her baby boy was critically ill, his lymphatic system failing.

His chance of survival was rated at 50 per cent but thanks to a risky operation in utero by some of the world’s most highly skilled doctors, he underwent life-saving surgery and survived.

But the journey was still not over: having been born too early, he was taken away at birth and placed in an incubator.

Dozens of doctors and nurses fought around the clock to keep him alive and, after five anxious months of neonatal care, his condition started to improve.

Ms Gordon wrote: “If my child had not been in a first-rate hospital with access to the latest, greatest technology in modern science, he would have had no chance of survival.

“Even if Joel had been conceived in the year I was born, 1978, he would still have died a foetus, his lungs crushed by amniotic fluid.

“Yet here I am writing this, the mother of a cuddly, whimsical little chatterbox who asks for sausages for dinner every day.

“I decided to find out how, exactly, modern medicine got my son here.”

The author details the relationship mothers develop with doctors and looks at the case histories of other mothers who have experienced high-risk births.

The book, published by Pan Macmillan imprint Bluebird, is out now and has already won positive reviews.

Adam Kay, whose book This Is Going to Hurt – the Secret Diary of a Junior Doctor became a bestseller, praised The First Breath as ‘fascinating and moving’.

Ms Gordon lives in Oxford with her husband Phil, son Joel and daughter Anna.

The author added: “I realised I was a member of an increasing band of parents whose children would not have survived, could not have been treated, if born 30, 20 or even 10 years before.

“Modern medicine had saved our children; we had our ‘miracle babies’, but beyond the sentimental ‘little warrior’ cliches, we faced a reality of children with complex needs and our own uncharted emotions.

“Saving our children was uncharted territory for the medical staff too.”

The First Breath: How Modern Medicine Saves the Most Fragile Lives by Olivia Gordon is published by Bluebird, price £16.99.