A MOTHER has spoken of the agonising moment her son died in her arms in an emotional bid to raise awareness of meningitis.
Maria Strachan, 25, from Forfar, Angus, and partner James lost their son Ethan to meningitis soon after he was born last year and, through the charity Meningitis Now, Ms Strachan has chosen to tell their devastating story in order help others.
She said: "We wanted to give our boy the best chances in life, but his body had enough and was letting us know he couldn’t fight any longer.
"Our options were all just awful, nothing any parent wanted to hear.
"Our only options were to send him to Newcastle for a heart transplant, where it would be very, very unlikely there would be a heart his size for such a tiny sick baby like Ethan, and even if there was they didn’t think he would survive the operation, and would become more sick and continue to be in pain.
"Or we say our goodbyes in a family room holding our boy and cuddling him, and they put him to sleep in a nice calm environment, or we wait until he passed."
She said they decided that "as heart breaking as it was, the best thing for our little boy was to let him rest in peace in his mummy and daddy’s arms, and take the pain that he had been suffering for five weeks away from him".
"After the removal of his tubes, they put us in a family room and brought our Ethan through to us with only life support keeping him alive.
"After some time spent with Ethan saying goodbye and telling him we loved him and how proud we were of him, we held him tight in our arms and told him everything was going to be okay.
"Then it was time for the consultant to inject Ethan with pain relief, and then remove his life support.
"Minutes later our gorgeous little Ethan rested at peace in his mummy and daddy’s arms."
Ms Strachan said: "What we can do now is help someone else so they don’t suffer like we did."
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