Abortion limit baby girl goes home

A baby girl born when her mother was just 23 weeks pregnant - and five days before the legal abortion limit - is recovering at home after nine-months in hospital.

Ellie-Suzanne Fish was born nearly four months premature at Southmead Hospital, in Bristol.

Doctors told parents Beverley and Dave Fish their daughter, born weighing 1lb 4.7oz (589 grams) had only a 10% to 15% chance of survival.

After slowly gaining weight and coming through two brain operations Ellie-Suzanne is home with her three brothers David, 18, Martyn, 17, and Joshua, 11, and her sister, Abbie, 15.

Some MPs are calling for the Fertilisation and Embryology Act to be amended so the legal limit for abortion is lowered from its present level of 24 weeks to between 12 and 22 weeks.

Mrs Fish, 37, and her husband, 42, both said they supported the move.

Mrs Fish told the Bristol Evening Post: "That she came out of it such a little darling is so amazing.

"After all she has been through we sometimes cannot believe that she is here and so strong with a smile on her face. She's a miracle."

Doctors have warned more developmental problems could emerge as Ellie-Suzanne grows up.

She spent her first six-months in the neo-natal intensive care unit at Southmead, before moving to Bristol Children's Hospital. Ellie-Suzanne, who now weighs 14lbs, has to be fed through a tube and requires oxygen.

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