You never expect your world to change in a single moment - but at 02:30 on the morning of Sunday 27 July, theirs did. Bernie woke to find her baby gasping for air. She shook her partner awake in panic, telling him that “Leo wasn’t breathing properly”, and within seconds he turned blue and stopped breathing in their arms.
Reacting quickly, Bernie recognised that her son had experienced a cardiac arrest and began CPR. After what felt like forever, taking turns to resuscitate Leo, they cleared his airways and successfully restarted their baby’s heart. Those terrifying minutes, they truly believed their baby was gone.
In the two weeks that followed, Leo spent time in two hospitals undergoing many investigations and examinations. The cause was eventually found: a cow’s milk protein allergy (CMPA) that caused airway swelling, which combined with mucus pooling had blocked his airways. Had Bernie not woken to the sounds of Leo’s gasps, or had she not known how to resuscitate him, the outcome may have been very different.