A DOTING mum is counting her blessings after her newborn son spent four days in intensive car and she needed six bags of blood before returning home.

Emma Rouse gave birth to Archer Christopher Rouse at Basildon Hospital on June 15, but the little bundle of joy’s arrival into the world did not go to plan.

While Emma required six bags of blood before being allowed to return home with husband Danny, their first child was in intensive care for four days.

Emma was given tablets in a failed attempt to lower her blood pressure before she was given antibiotics for sepsis, given oxygen and hooked up to a machine to take different readings of her body.

She said: “I was rushed to theatre, where they finally got Archer out by forceps. I lost a lot of blood and had three bags of blood put back into me.

“One of the nurses tried to give me Archer to hold but, as I was shaking so much, I was unable to hold him.

“The nurse said ‘the mum does not want to hold the baby’ but I wanted nothing more than to hold him. With the shaking, it would not have been safe.

“Within 10 minutes the intensive care team came to check Archer and they took him away for treatment as he had the jitters and shakes.

“Danny got to see him again before he had to leave the hospital but I did not get to see him until the following afternoon.”

Matters then went from bad to worse for Emma.

She added: “I noticed something was not right and I was still bleeding.

“None of the doctors knew what was happening and gave six different outcomes as to what the issues could be.

“I was not really with it and did not understand what was going on.

“The intensive care team asked for permission to do a brain scan on Archer as they were not happy with the readings they were getting from him. I agreed but had no idea what was happening to either of us.

“I went back into theatre, where they found the bleeding issues and resolved it. I also had to have three more bags of blood put back in me.”

Emma was in intensive care for a day and a half due to worrying readings, the blood loss and high blood pressure.

But it was her little bundle of joy’s health she was worried about.

She added: “Archer was being fed through a tube in his nose.

“He was in intensive care for four days and it was extremely frightening for us because we did not know what was happening.

“It was very frightening for Danny as he had no idea what was going on or that I had been taken back into theatre because he couldn’t stay at the hospital.”

Thankfully, Emma and Archer – who weighed 8lb 14oz when he came into the world – have made a full recovery and returned to their Benfleet home.