WITH her bright eyes and cheeky smile, April Jackson looks the picture of perfection in the arms of proud mother Bernadette.

But doctors faced a race against time to save them both when the 25-year-old went into labour 10 weeks early and April was born fighting three deadly infections.

The young mother’s organs began to shut down after she developed an e-coli infection in the womb and blood poisoning two days after her waters broke.

The deadly bugs were passed on to April whose heart rate plummeted so low in the womb it failed to register on the monitor - and, just 24 hours after she was born, doctors confirmed the gravely ill newborn was also battling meningitis.

The tiny tot weighed just 3lb and medics and her parents feared the worst as she clung to life at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.

But after a remarkable recovery, April has just celebrated her first birthday - a day Mrs McGhee-Jackson and husband Sean Jackson, 28, feared they would never see.

The mother-of-two, from Glasgow, said: “When she was born, we never thought that far in advance. We just got through one day and then the next. We were worried about losing her, even just holding her. It was scary. But now she’s the perfect baby - and she loves her big brother so much.”

Mrs McGhee-Jackson, a hospital ward clerk, first started getting contractions when she was 27 weeks pregnant but was sent home from hospital when they stopped. In the fortnight that followed she had two more false alarms, where the contractions started and suddenly stopped.

As a precaution, she was given steroids to help boost her unborn baby’s lung function, in the event she arrived early.

But at 30 weeks, her waters broke while she was at home and, just two days later in hospital, the family’s nightmare began, just as she was about to be sent home again.

Mrs McGhee-Jackson said: “It all happened so suddenly. My waters broke and infection set in. My whole body was aching and I was shaking violently because the sepsis had set in and the e-coli.

“April’s heart rate was dropping and going completely off the monitor - there was no heartbeat. My organs were shutting down and they said, ‘right, we need to get baby out now’.

“It was absolutely terrifying. But thankfully they caught it in time, or I hate to think what would have happened.”

Surgeons had no time to give her an epidural so they had to perform the emergency caesarean section under a general anaesthetic to save her and her baby.

It took them just 15 minutes to deliver April on August 20, 2019, and doctors told her mother that her battling baby gave a “great scream” when she was delivered.

But to keep her alive she spent the next two days on a ventilator, was given antibiotics to treat the deadly infections, as well as light therapy for jaundice.

Mrs McGhee-Jackson, who was also given antibiotics to fight the e-coli and sepsis, said: “I wasn’t awake for the birth and I didn’t know I was having a girl - my husband got to see her first - so it was such a nice surprise to wake up to after that delivery.

“I just felt so unwell, almost as if I was in a dream, like an outer-body experience.

“I kept seeing the lights on the roof whooshing past because they were running so fast. I wasn’t taking in what they were saying, I just felt rotten, like I had a really bad flu. My body just went into shock because of the infection levels.”

She said April’s infection levels were also “through the roof” and the poorly baby continued to get worse until they tested for meningitis 24 hours after she was born.

Mrs McGhee-Jackson said: “I knew she had e-coli and sepsis but I never expected the test [for meningitis] to come back positive. I just thought, ‘how can she have it, she’s only a day old’.”

Remarkably, despite being so ill and premature, April, who was not due until October 21, 2019, was breathing on her own after just two weeks.

And just a fortnight later she was finally allowed home with her parents and big brother Caleb, seven, who faced his own battle for survival when he, too, was born 10 weeks early with a bleed to his brain.

Medics had to insert a shunt to drain the fluid from his brain and he, like his little sister, is now a picture of health.

“I’ve got two wee miracles,” said Mrs McGhee-Jackson. “Thankfully they’re both all better and have no health complications whatsoever.”

In memory of grandfather Jim McGhee, who died of bowel cancer a few months before she was born, April was named after the month of his birthday.

But when April was born, she was so fragile her mother had to wait two days before she was finally allowed to hold her.

Recalling that precious moment, she said: “It was amazing. It almost felt like I got her back.”

And Mrs McGhee-Jackson heaped praise on the staff at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital for saving their little girl.

“Without them she wouldn’t be here today,” she said. “They caught it quickly and saved her life.

“Now she is just the perfect baby; she sleeps 12 hours solid, she’s started crawling about and she’s such a wee character and she loves her big brother so much.”