Four days after twins Nancy and Rita Holgate were born in the U.K., parents Rachael and James decided to have a midwife come check on the girls.
When the midwife noticed that Nancy had an unusually high temperature, she decided to take the baby to the hospital just in case.
They are lucky they did because baby Nancy was limp and showed a major loss of color within the hour.
The doctors were quickly able to make a connection between mother Rachel feeling under the weather the week before the birth and the baby's condition.
It turns out that Rachael had suffered from viral meningitis, eventually passing on the illness to the twins in the womb.
Unfortunately, doctors misidentified Rachel's meningitis as bacterial and the antibiotics they initially tried on Nancy had no effect. In fact, the medicine was not capable of fighting the viral infection the babies actually had.
By the time they diagnosed the correct viral infection, other twin Rita also started to show symptoms. Luckily, medical professionals had the correct diagnosis and were able to treat her right away.
Although the twins had to fight for their lives, they were both able to make a miraculous recovery.
Their father James echoes this by saying, "Our twins are absolute miracles. We could never have planned for this to happen. If it wasn't for the midwife who came by to check on them, they could have gone undiagnosed for longer."
It is important to note that meningitis can be identified by a number of symptoms other than the commonly known rash. Some of these include fever, abnormal skin color, rapid breathing, a stiff neck and lethargy.
The horrific ordeal has led mother Rachel to raise awareness about the risks of viral meningitis. Warning signs and other helpful information can be found on her blog.
The twins are home now, living safe and healthy with the rest of their family as they should be!
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