BABY BOY JOY FOR SWINE FLU AIRLIFT SCOT; Sharon and son 'fit and well'.

Byline: Janice Burns; Craig McDonald

A WOMAN airlifted to Sweden for life-saving treatment when she caught swine flu while pregnant had a baby boy yesterday.

Sharon Pentleton was hooked up to a machine that circulates the blood outside the body when she was six months pregnant.

She told how she feared for her unborn baby because of her condition and the medication she'd received. But her healthy 6lb 9oz baby was delivered by Caesarean section at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock yesterday.

Sharon and partner Brian Muirhead already have a two-year-old daughter, Kieva.

A friend last night said: "Sharon and her new son appear fit and well and the nurses are happy with things.

"There was some tension just because of everything she's been through, but the doctors were confident and everything has worked out."

Worrying Sharon, 27, told last month how she feared for her unborn son despite the reassurances of medical staff.

She said doctors who examined her said the boy was "still active and growing fine".

Sharon said: "They told me there was nothing to worry about with him.

"I was worrying about brain damage because of everything that I've been through and the medication I've been on.

"They can't tell you 100 per cent, but they say it's very unlikely that he's been damaged in any way - which is a wee miracle." The Record told three months ago how Sharon fought for her life in hospital after being diagnosed with swine flu.

She was in a coma and, because of a lack of specialist beds in Britain, she had to be flown to Sweden.

Telling of the moment she awoke, Sharon said: "I was terrified. I didn't realise where I was and they were talking strange. It was really, really horrible - that's the only way I can describe it.

"Then I had all these tubes, I couldn't breathe on my own. I was hooked up to all sorts of machines.

"It frightens me to realise how close I came to not being here at all."

Sharon, from Saltcoats, Ayrshire, fell ill on July 12.

She went to Crosshouse Hospital with severe back pain and was treated for appendicitis before being diagnosed with swine flu.

As her condition deteriorated, doctors decided she needed a bypass procedure known as extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).

The machine takes over the lung function and adds oxygen to the blood, allowing the lungs to recover and medication to take hold. There are only five dedicated adult ECMO beds in Britain and none was available when she was struck down.

There is an ECMO machine at Glasgow's Yorkhill children's hospital but it is only suitable for youngsters. The closest adult ECMO beds are at the UK centre in Leicester.

After searching all over Europe to find a free ECMO bed, the lifeline came from Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm.

Sharon was flown there and, within hours, a team of 28 specialist medics had hooked her up to the ECMO unit.

Grateful Sharon spent almost two weeks attached to the machine and had to have a tracheotomy to aid her breathing.

She was so ill that doctors told her family they were taking things "minute to minute". But within days, she was well enough to come out of full sedation.

Sharon returned home from hospital at the end of August.

She and her family have since launched a campaign to help raise the money for Scotland's own dedicated adult ECMO unit.

Sharon and the family are so grateful she survived, they've launched a campaign to buy one of the pounds 100,000 machines for Scotland.

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A HAPPY ENDING: Sharon Pentleton, above, and in hospital in Sweden during her swine flu ordeal