A baby who needed five blood transfusions whilst in the womb is now a healthy, happy six month old boy living in Cheam.

Teddy Banham was found to be severely anaemic 20 weeks into his mother Emma's pregnancy, meaning doctors at St George's had to take the exceptional step of transfusing blood to him through the umbilical cord.

Due to the nature of the procedure, which involves inserting a needle into the cord through the mothers uterus, risks are involved, including premature labour or miscarriage.

After five successful procedures, Teddy was strong enough to be delivered at 35 weeks by caesarian and has grown from strength to strength ever since.

Emma, who lives in Cheam with her husband Gary and their two children, said: “I did a lot of research during my pregnancy and found community groups of women with the same condition.

"I was very aware that lots of babies don’t make it, particularly those that have required transfusions so early on, like Teddy.

"We were completely in Dr Bhide’s hands and felt really reassured by the care he gave us and to Teddy.”

“By Teddy’s last transfusion, we were just really looking forward to the delivery and meeting our little boy.

"We knew the transfusions had gone well so just hoped that he would be happy and healthy too.”

Since birth, Teddy has needed an additional four blood transfusions which have stabilised his blood levels.

Dr Amarnath Bhide, Consultant in Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine at St George’s, said: “It’s very unusual to see this so early on in pregnancy.

"Usually we would do one, or possibly two transfusions in total starting from 28/29 weeks, so for baby Edward to have received five transfusions between 20 and 32 weeks is quite something.

“We chose to deliver Edward early as he was doing really well in the womb following the transfusions and undertaking another transfusion would have carried more risks than delivering him at 35 weeks gestation.”