IT is every new parent's worst nightmare - watching their baby losing its battle to cling on to life - feeling so helpless, unable to carry their sick child's awful burden for them.

Fate, believes Lisa Davis, is the reason why she and her partner Keith's first born, Jack, died at just four weeks old.

Little Jack Christopher Davies was given a 50-50 chance of survival when he was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia on July 4.

It was the treatment using the extra corporeal membrane oxygenation programme (ECMO) that kept him going for two of the four weeks that was his life.

Courageous

Now the little boy's memory will live on as his Uncle Mark, a postman from Hereford, dons his running shoes to take part in the London Marathon to raise valuable cash for the ECMO programme.

Lisa from Bobblestock knew there was something wrong with her baby at 20 weeks. Doctors decided she should be induced in a Birmingham hospital and she had the terrifying experience of giving birth to an audience of 12 specialists.

Although she described the whole experience as scary she still courageously joked that her next one 'should be a breeze'.

"I never ever heard him cry because he went straight into ventilation," she explained.

Three operations and a move to the Glenfield Hospital in Leicester - one of the few places in the country that provides ECMO - took its toll on Jack and an infection finally claimed his little life with mummy and daddy at his side.

Lisa said: "I don't blame him for giving up because he went through so much in those four weeks.

"He was a brave little chap, he played up for the nurses, he had a real character, I could see he was going to be a real little monkey - just what we wanted.

"The nurses were shattered by the end of their shift," she added before praising them for never leaving his side.

"He was a daddy's boy - looked like him - you could see he was going to be like dad," she smiled.

Lisa, a nanny to triplets, who has worked in the childcare profession for all of her career, has always known that she wanted to work with children and have a big family of her own.

One day she hopes to tell her brood about their brave older brother who will always be fondly remembered.

"A new baby wouldn't replace him but it does make you realise what you want out of life and if it happened again we would go through it all again," she said.

Positive

Precious teddies went into Jack's coffin with him 'to look after and keep an eye on him'. Lisa was adamant about that.

Now doing something positive is providing a focus for Lisa, who is going back to work to look after her three charges, because 'there's only so much cleaning you can do'.

With £800 in donations from Jack's funeral she hopes to start fundraising for the ECMO programme in memory of her boy.

"I am hoping to promote the ECMO programme because my family and I had never heard of it or knew it was there.

"It is very expensive to run. We can't fault the NHS; there is no way we could afford the treatment otherwise."

She continued: "It has brought us a lot closer. I don't think we could have gone through anything worse.

" Keith has been a tower of strength.

"Four weeks is better than nothing at all."

For further information on the ECMO programme call 0116 250 2423 or to sponsor Mark in his marathon run or send a donation contact Lisa on 0776 146 1658.