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"Eight months earlier, Deacon had given birth to a healthy baby boy named Alfie. The early months of his life had been challenging for her and her partner, Drew, as they are for any first-time parents, but by the summer, Alfie was sleeping and feeding well, and it felt like the family was settling into the new rhythm. However, one night the couple woke up to find their baby's little body gripped by a paralysing seizure."

"They immediately rushed Alfie to their local hospital, in Warwick, but it lacked an intensive care unit and the staff had no experience of these types of seizures. Alfie's health worsened by the hour. At first the doctors followed the protocols for an infant heart attack. When this failed, they switched to the treatment for someone suffering a febrile seizure, the convulsions that a child can suffer when they have a particularly high temperature."

"Alfie's seizures were whole-body. Each time they struck him, his tiny frame would strain and convulse, and he would stop breathing. Deacon watched in horror each time her baby began to turn blue. The doctors called a number of paediatric specialists but couldn't get Alfie into Birmingham children's hospital the nearest big specialist unit as it was already overcrowded."

"He was finally given a bed at Stoke hospital, which had an intensive care unit for children. In Stoke, Alfie was put on life support. The doctors said they had to do this just to give his brain a chance to calm down, Deacon said. They would periodically take him off life support to see if he would stop seizing, but he wouldn't, so they would put him back on."

In 2012, Hannah Deacon and her partner Drew had a healthy baby boy, Alfie, after a difficult early period typical for first-time parents. By summer, Alfie was feeding and sleeping well, but one night he suffered a paralysing seizure that gripped his body. The family rushed him to a local hospital in Warwick, which lacked an intensive care unit and had limited experience with this type of seizure. Alfie’s condition worsened quickly as staff tried protocols for an infant heart attack, then switched to treatment for febrile seizures. His whole-body seizures caused him to stop breathing and turn blue. Specialists were contacted, but transfer to Birmingham Children’s Hospital was not possible due to overcrowding. Alfie was eventually admitted to Stoke hospital, where he was placed on life support to give his brain time to calm, with repeated attempts to remove support failing because seizures continued.

Read at www.theguardian.com