• News
  • Life
  • TV & Film
  • Beauty
  • Style
  • Home
  • News
    • Celebrity
    • Entertainment
    • Politics
    • Royal Family
  • Life
    • Animals
    • Food & Drink
    • Women's Health
    • Mental Health
    • Sex & Relationships
    • Travel
    • Real Life
  • TV & Film
    • True Crime
    • Documentaries
    • Netflix
    • BBC
    • ITV
    • Tyla Recommends
  • Beauty
    • Hair
    • Make-up
    • Skincare
  • Style
    • Home
    • Fashion
    • Shopping
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • LADbible
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
TikTok
Submit Your Content
Mum claims daughter could die every time she watches Peppa Pig or sleeps due to rare condition

Home> Life

Published 10:37 6 Apr 2023 GMT+1

Mum claims daughter could die every time she watches Peppa Pig or sleeps due to rare condition

Sadie had to have an operation when she was just two months old to help keep her alive

Emily Brown

Emily Brown

A mum has explained how her six-year-old daughter could die while doing something as simple as watching Peppa Pig as a result of a rare condition.

Plopping a child in front of the TV screen is usually a handy way to keep them distracted while parents get some necessary errands or housework done, but for Star and Andrew Bowyer, that's exactly the kind of time they need to keep a close eye on their daughter, Sadie.

Sadie had a tracheotomy when she was two months old.
Kennedy News and Media

The six-year-old has to be monitored around the clock, and has to be hooked up to a ventilator every night to avoid a fatal incident.

Advert

Just weeks after she was born, Sadie was diagnosed with Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome; a condition which means her body doesn't breathe automatically, like most of us are used to, when she sleeps or concentrates too hard on something.

Star has explained that she had a healthy pregnancy, but the newborn had to be resuscitated and was rushed off to intensive care for six months right after she was born.

"When she was born, she was whisked away from me and she was in respiratory distress," Star said. "That was our first indication that anything was wrong.

"They said she was healthy and it was probably a respiratory infection or she swallowed some fluid. They did every genetic test going and they couldn't find anything wrong with her... She was breathing fine when she was awake but she stopped breathing when she went to sleep."

Advert

Sadie's parents knew something was wrong immediately after she was born.
Kennedy News and Media

Star gave Peppa Pig as an example of something which might prove fatal to Sadie, with the show proving so captivating to the youngster that it could cause her to forget to breathe.

"Every single night, Sadie could die within minutes. Her brain can forget to breathe and send signals for the heart to beat," Star explained.

"If she concentrates really hard, she'll stop breathing. If she's concentrating really hard on Peppa Pig, she'll stop breathing.

Advert

"She starts turning blue, she gets tired from carbon monoxide retention and she'll go very still. I immediately put her on the ventilator."

Following her diagnosis, when she was just two months old, Star had a tracheotomy to help her breathe. But as she's grown older, the young girl has become conscious of the feature.

Star explained: "She went to the park and some kids were pointing at her tracheotomy and calling her ugly so she came running over and asked me to take it out but then they were pointing at the hole in her neck and calling her disgusting."

The family are fundraising for an operation for Sadie.
Kennedy News and Media

Advert

Sadie can't be left unattended at any point during the day, with her parents having to be particularly careful on long car journeys or if they settle down to watch a film.

The family has installed hospital grade equipment in Sadie's bedroom to keep her alive, and are now fundraising £160,000 to pay for her to have Phrenic Nerve Pacers fitted, which would allow her to breathe without the tracheotomy.

"It could change her life," Star said of the operation. "It wouldn't matter if she fell asleep.

"She could stop breathing in her GCSE exams so we'd have to put her in a room on her own with a ventilator which is embarrassing. The pacers would help her be like any other kid."

Advert

Star described her daughter as a 'spitfire' with a 'great sense of humour', and expressed her hopes that she will soon be able to get the independence she deserves.

You can donate to Sadie's fundraiser here.

Featured Image Credit: Kennedy / Simon Dack / Alamy Stock Photo

Topics: Health, Parenting

Emily Brown
Emily Brown

Emily Brown is the Community Desk Lead at LADbible Group. Emily first began delivering news when she was just 11 years old - with a paper route. She went on to graduate with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University before contributing to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems. She joined UNILAD in 2018 to cover breaking news, trending stories and longer form features, and now works as Community Desk Lead to commission and write human interest stories from across the globe.

Advert

Advert

Advert

Choose your content:

2 days ago
3 days ago
  • 2 days ago

    People only just realising why Getty images is called that

    Brace yourself for some pretty wild family stories

    Life
  • 2 days ago

    There’s only one Starbucks in the world where staff are not allowed to ask for your name

    No butchering someone's name in this store...

    Life
  • 3 days ago

    Ozempic user shocked to learn what 'symptom jump' is after no one warned them of bizarre weight loss drug side effect

    The drug is traditionally prescribed to help sufferers of Type-2 diabetes

    Life
  • 3 days ago

    Dark history behind dangerous war weapon that’s now used by millions of cancer patients

    The clue was hidden among the battlefields of World War One for decades

    Life
  • Mum reveals unbelievable story of how her baby was ‘born twice’ due to rare condition
  • Why Tom Hanks’ daughter doesn’t call his wife Rita her ‘stepmother’ after detailing 'violent' childhood in huge claims against own mum
  • Meghan and Harry’s daughter Lilibet makes extremely rare appearance as mum makes major career move
  • Jesy Nelson has major update on unborn twins as their rare medical condition is explained