A grieving mum has told of how her dying baby daughter was discovered by her eight-year-old big sister at home after going into cardiac arrest.
Jessamy Muswere-Enagbonma tragically passed away in January 2021. She was just four months old.
Jessamy's mum, Pauline, recalled how her older daughter Jemima discovered the tot's lifeless body when she went in to check on her while she was sleeping.
“She could never bear to be apart from Jessamy for long and she went in to check her whilst she was sleeping and found her lifeless," Pauline, from Bolton, recalled.
The mum-of-seven added: "Jemima was a typical big sister, and she adored Jessamy; it was all the more exciting because she had another sister after four brothers."
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When little Jemima realised her baby sister wasn't breathing she screamed for help and an ambulance was called.
Sadly, despite the best efforts of the medical staff, Jessamy died four days later in hospital.
Pauline and her husband Charles got married in 2004 and settled in Bolton. They went on to have seven children, Jeffrey, 17, Jeremy, 15, Jerome, 11, Jemima, now 10, Jezreel, eight, Jenaya, three and Jessamy, who was born in September 2021.
The supermum said: “I always wanted a big family. Charles is a real family man and devoted to his children, he is a great cook and loves playing football with the kids.
“Jessamy was our youngest, she was perfectly healthy and developing really well. The older children adored her and Jemima, especially, was a little mother hen. She never let Jessamy out of her sight for long.”
The night the tot passed away, the parents had relatives visiting, so Charles fed her and put her down to sleep.
He recalled: “I was worried that, with a full house, we might not hear Jessamy if she was upstairs alone. So I put her to sleep in our downstairs office, on a completely flat sofa bed on her tummy.”
But less than half an hour later when Jemima crept in to check on her sister, she noticed the baby wasn't moving and had blood around her nose.
The family sounded the alarm and called an ambulance which whisked Jessamy away to hospital. She was put on life support but tragically didn't survive.
Pauline said: “We were numb with shock. She was such a healthy, beautiful, baby. The doctors could not say why she had died. They told me: ‘she probably just forgot to breathe.’ It broke my heart.
“At her funeral, we chose a hymn which we’d played when Jessamy was born and also when her life support was withdrawn.
“It was very painful, for us and for our children. Nobody knew why she had died.”
In June last year, an inquest found Jessamy's likely cause of death was brain damage caused by a cardiac arrest while sleeping.
Desperate for a focus after the death of their youngest child, Pauline and Charles have set up care businesses in Jessamy's memory - called Jessamy Solutions and Jessamy Platinum Homecare. The companies offer home nursing care to those who need it and also supply staff to the care industry across the north west of England.
“Our care business is a way of ensuring that Jessamy’s name lives on. I have a home office and it’s the same room she died in. I remember her when I am working each day," Pauline said.
Pauline says: “We want to make our care businesses a success for her, and for our older children.
“We hope to pass our companies to them when they are older. More than anything, we want to make sure Jessamy’s name and memory is never forgotten.”
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