A mum woke from a Covid coma to discover she'd given birth to her baby girl. Laura Ward spent seven weeks in the coma after falling ill with the virus while pregnant with her daughter Hope.
Her condition deteriorated so much that she was sedated for an emergency C-section at 31 weeks, more than two months before her due date of October 15.
Thankfully all was well with baby, who was born weighing 3lb 7oz at Royal Bolton Hospital, and despite spending five weeks on the neonatal unit, she's now fit and healthy and a thriving 10lb 7oz.
But for mum Laura it was just the beginning of a horrific ordeal that at one point her family feared she would never recover from.