Baby dies after being born early to give mum a chance at life

Baby Ally and mum Heidi Loughlin.

A baby born 12 weeks prematurely for her mother to be treated for cancer has died.

Metropolitan Police officer Heidi Loughlin, 32, discovered she had a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer after falling pregnant with her third child.

Doctors offered her an abortion and told her she should start life-saving treatment immediately, which would have been harmful to her unborn baby. But Loughlin, of Portishead, north Somerset, decided to put her own life at risk by delaying chemotherapy in favour of a less effective treatment.

Ally Louise Smith was born by C-section on December 11 weighing just 1049g but died eight days later.

Loughlin wrote a poem on her blog: "Yesterday afternoon our hearts broke in two. For we had to say goodbye to you." It continued: "The pain in my body and heart and my soul feels it will consume me and leave me un-whole."

Heidi, who has sons Noah, 2, and Tait, 1, with partner Keith, was breastfeeding her youngest child when she noticed a rash in February. Doctors said she had mastitis - a condition that makes breastfeeding painful for new mums.

But after falling pregnant three months later, tests revealed she had inflammatory breast cancer.

She decided against an intensive form of chemotherapy because it would harm the child and instead began a course of treatment with the powerful drug Herceptin after Ally's birth.