THE First Minister has committed to improving support for the parents of babies born prematurely after a plea from an MSP whose daughter was delivered 12-weeks early

Nicola Sturgeon made the pledge after a call from Labour MSP Mark Griffin, whose daughter Rosa was not expected to live but has now been allowed home.

Griffin said the period she spent in hospital was “the most stressful time” that he and his wife Stephanie had endured, and raised concerns that those on low incomes would face greater barriers to being with their child.

Speaking during First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood, he said: “In March my wife and I were told that our unborn daughter would die due to very premature labour.

“Six months on, baby Rosa, who wasn’t given a chance, is now doing well at home but those months spent with Rosa in hospital have been the most stressful time that we’ve ever gone through and we’re not alone in that. But other families don’t have an MSPs salary to cover the costs associated with that hospital stay - the transport, accommodation, food and childcare that on average costs £200 a week.

“Mothers we spoke to, who were already struggling to cope with the stress of having a very premature and sick baby and who had to leave their baby in hospital every night, were also worrying about how they would pay for a taxi to get to hospital the next day. Sometimes they just could not do so.

“Those mothers had to be there to provide the life-saving breast milk that their premature baby needed because their stomach would not tolerate formula.”

He asked Sturgeon to look “as a matter of urgency” at financial support to low-income parents of premature babies in hospital “so that the costs of visiting doesn’t stop one more mum from being with their baby”.

Committing to do so, the First Minister said she was “hugely sympathetic” to the case set out by Griffin.

She said: “The short but perhaps most helpful answer to Mark Griffin’s question is yes, we will do that work and we are happy to work with him. I am hugely sympathetic to the very powerful case that he has just set out.

“The review of maternity and neonatal services that I mentioned recognised that point and recommended that a review be carried out of ‘the approach to expenses for families of babies in neonatal care ... to develop a nationally agreed policy’. That is one of the key parts of the plan.”

She added: “A range of support is available to families, but it is not as consistent or necessarily as reliable as it needs to be. We will take forward that work. Given Mark Griffin’s personal experience, it would be very useful, for obvious reasons, to have his input into that.” She said she would ask the Health Secretary to contact Griffin.