Mirain Jones' 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 eight 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 11 am, the GP agreed to see her at 5:00 pm. But we were told by the GP that she had mouth thrush and the high temperature was caused by the vaccine (her temperature was 37 degrees at this point).

By 2 am on Saturday, Mirain was screaming and her temperature by this point had gone up to 38.4 and Calpol wasn't bringing it down. We decided to take her straight to A&E (accident and emergency), and we were quickly taken to the children's ward. During our time at the hospital, she developed a rash and we were told by the pediatrician that they would be treating her for meningitis. This was the worst possible news we could have imagined, with all sorts of thoughts going through our heads. The doctors were amazing with us and Mirian 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 it.

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 daily for eleven days to finish her antibiotics. We were lucky that she did not have to be taken to ICU.

Mirain is now seventeen weeks old and doesn't appear to have any long-term effects at the moment. She recently had a hearing test, which confirmed the meningitis hadn't affected 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.