Already the parents of a healthy 2-year-old daughter, Margot-Rose, Craig and Lizzie Naylor from Staffordshire were thrilled to welcome baby son Harrison Stanley Anderson to their family on 6th February 2025.
Just three and a half weeks later though, every new parent’s worst nightmares were realised when Harrison became seriously ill with an infection that developed into sepsis. Craig explains what happened here.
During the night of 2nd March (which was the night before my first day back at work after paternity leave), Lizzy and I began to be concerned that Harrison did not seem to be his normal self. Prior to that night, Harrison had been an easy baby, waking for a feed every 3 hours and going straight back to sleep in his cot afterwards. That night though he woke up really distressed and was difficult to settle. He felt warm to the touch so we stripped him off, out of his sleeping bag, and tried to cool him down. Initially we thought that he had just become too hot in his sleeping bag but he was still warm and upset half an hour later. Our concern growing, we checked his temperature. It was 39.7 degrees. We knew this wasn’t good.
Lizzy drove him straight up to our nearest A&E department and I stayed at home with our daughter. By the time they arrived at Queen’s Hospital, Burton on Trent, Harrison’s temperature had dropped. However, due to his age, they were still concerned by the temperature we had recorded at home. The paediatric registrar assessed Harrison and reassured us that he was happy and healthy. Very luckily, there is a policy in place to monitor a newborn’s temperature for 4 hours after presenting at A&E so he was admitted to the paediatric ward. He was generally much more settled, until the final check before we were hoping that he could come home. The nurse checked his temperature and found that it had spiked back up to 39.3 degrees. She immediately emergency-paged the registrar and Harrison was cannulated and on intravenous antibiotics within the hour. It was at this point that we realised the severity of the situation and I joined Harrison and my wife at hospital.
Later that same day, the consultant discussed his illness with us and told us that he was concerned that Harrison might have meningitis. To rule this out Harrison had to have a lumbar puncture performed, which was heartbreaking. Unfortunately it failed so had to be repeated the following day.
Thankfully, the results showed that Harrison was not suffering from meningitis, but that he did have urosepsis – meaning he needed to stay in to continue with the IV antibiotics every 8 hours for 7 days.
Clearly we were very worried to hear he had sepsis, to the point that we weren’t really reassured by the fact that he didn’t have meningitis. After discharge, we received a letter which documented the diagnosis as sepsis and also noted his CRP on admission to have been 61.
At the time, our families were very shocked and understandably, incredibly worried. Both sets of grandparents rallied around us, helping to provide childcare for Margot so that I could spend as much time with Harrison in the hospital as possible.
Since then, he has been seen by the consultant who treated him, who was happy with his progress and advised us that Harrison will need to be seen every 4 months until he is 4 years old.
We were not aware of the charity Sepsis Research FEAT prior to me deciding to fundraise, which makes it seem even more important to raise awareness. We have chosen to share our story with Sepsis Research FEAT now to help raise awareness of the severity of sepsis in newborns in particular.
We are just very, very grateful now that he is still here with us and would just say this to other parents: if you have any concerns at all, make sure you get those concerns addressed – a parent’s instinct is rarely wrong and you know your child best.
Charity Comment
Despite the fact that their son was only 3.5 weeks old at the time, Craig and Lizzy knew their baby and acted as soon as they were aware of something unusual in his condition and behaviour. It is likely to have been that prompt action in seeking medical help that ensured that he is the healthy, happy boy that he is today, just four months on from his illness – a devoted little brother to his big sister.
Craig’s advice to other parents is so important: no one knows your child better than you. If you have any sense at all that something is not right you should act immediately and seek medical help as soon as you can.
You can find important information about key symptoms of sepsis in children and babies on the charity’s website here or read other stories, such as that of Oliver G, now a healthy 6 year old, here
We are so grateful to Craig and his family for sharing their story and to Craig himself for undertaking multiple challenges, including his first marathon in 2026, to raise funds for sepsis research and awareness. You can find out more and support him here