Mirain Jones's story

Our daughter Mirain was born in May 2024 and was a healthy, happy baby.

However, she started to be unsettled after her first lot of vaccinations at 8 weeks old - she was crying and did not feed very well. She had her vaccinations on the Tuesday and by Friday she had developed a high temperature and was screaming. This caused both myself and my husband concern, and we therefore contacted the GP at 11am, the GP agreed to see her at 17:00pm. But we were told by the GP that she had mouth thrush and the high temperature was caused by the vaccine (temp was 37 at this point).

By 2am on Saturday morning Mirain was screaming and her temperature by this point had gone up to 38.4 and calpol wasn't bringing it down. We made the decision to take her straight to A&E (Accident and Emergency), and we were quickly taken to the children's ward. During our time at hospital she developed a rash and were told by the paediatrician that they would be treating her for meningitis. This was the worst possible news we could have imagined, with all sort of thoughts going through our heads. The doctors were amazing with Mirain and us through the whole process. They started Mirain on antibiotics straight away and took fluid from the spine, which later confirmed she had bacterial meningitis. 

I would describe the whole process as very emotional, but the support from the hospital helped us through.

We were told by the Doctors that it appeared we caught the meningitis early on. After three days in hospital, Mirain was allowed home, but had to go back to the hospital on a daily basis for 11 days to finish her antibiotics. We were lucky that she did not to be taken to ICU

Mirain is now 17 weeks and doesn't appear to have any long term effects at the moment. She recently had a hearing test, which conformed the meningitis hadn't effected her hearing at all. There also doesn't appear to be any problem with her eyesight, and she is back to being a happy baby kicking on the floor and has recently mastered rolling on her side.

As a family, we could not thank the hospital enough for what they did. My advice to anyone would be to follow your instinct and take your baby straight to A&E if you have any of the symptoms.