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Mother celebrates the healthy birth of her seventh baby

Seventh heaven for parents of newborn Honey.

A mother is finally celebrating the birth of a healthy baby - after her previous six newborns all required intensive care treatment.

Emma Cummings, 34, has seen her first six children rushed into incubators after suffering a potentially-fatal respiratory condition which prevented them from breathing properly.

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She was delighted when her latest arrival Honey was born without the syndrome and was able to come straight home with her the next day.

Emma said: "I am so grateful and so on top of the world with the fact that she avoided it.

"She is the first of our babies that came to the ward with me I have always had to go to the ward without my baby."

Emma's first child Molly, now ten, was born with 'respiratory distress syndrome' and had to spend several days in the neonatal intensive care unit at Southmead Hospital, Bristol.

Since then Evie, eight, Alfie, seven, Finley, five, Loui, three, and Charlie, 21 months, each had to spend between five to eight days in the unit after their births.

When Emma went into hospital for a planned caesarean on 14 May this year she went fully prepared for a long stay.

When Honey was born weighing 5lb 8oz she initially showed signs of RDS like her siblings.

But after an anxious wait for Emma and husband Craig, 36, she was given the all-clear and allowed home after 24 hours in transitional care.

Emma, of Shirehampton, Bristol, said: "We went in with suitcases full of stuff, prepared for the long-run but we were home within 48 hours, which was fantastic.

"We had always asked whether the RDS was a hereditary condition but they kept saying to us that there was nothing genetic and it was just bad luck that they all needed help.

"The only thing they did differently this time for Honey was to give steroid injections in the run up to her birth just in case to mature her lungs.

"It leaves you with the question of whether that was enough to avoid NICU, or did she just manage it on her own?

"It is something we will never have the answer too."