My baby looked burnt when he was born - I didn’t know he was at risk of condition

ok.co.uk:

Brooke Hale, 28, from Bristol, feared for her son Luca's life after he was born 12 weeks premature, weighing just 1kg with "red raw" skin and blindness in one eye.

Initially, doctors suspected a rare skin condition, but tests on Brooke's placenta revealed Luca had contracted HSV1 from her - a type of herpes linked to cold sores.The initial scans at around 10 and 20 weeks showed that Luca was "healthy" with no concerns.

However, during a 4D ultrasound on 11 December 2023, doctors struggled to see Luca clearly due to an "increased amount of cloudy fluid".That same evening, Brooke began to feel "pains" every few hours, which grew stronger over the weekend.

At St Michael’s Hospital in Bristol, the medical team examined her cervix and suggested that Brooke was likely experiencing "Braxton Hicks contractions", often referred to as practice contractions.