Pregnant universal credit

A parent of twins is calling for a law change so universal credit can be backdated beyond three months.

Ella-Mae Michalski spent six months in hospital before and after her complicated pregnancy and the premature birth of Bella and Ruby.

More than 50% of twins and 90% of triplets are born prematurely – which can lead to problems after birth.

Yet when Ella-Mae tried to claim UC from the time of her twins’ birth she was turned down by the Department of Work and Pensions.

It said they could only backdate it three months as she had taken too long to report the birth and didn’t fulfil the “special circumstances.”

She took the DWP to a tribunal which said she should receive all payments from the day the twins were born.

Ella-Mae, 34, said: “I feel so angry with the DWP – I told them how awful my experience with premature babies had been, how traumatised I was, and they did not care. I had to go to a tribunal when I should’ve been at home with my children who were on oxygen 24 hours a day.

“To be told that they wouldn’t backdate my claim because I didn’t fall into the special circumstances category was atrocious. If having children fighting for their lives isn’t exceptional circumstances then what is?

“I felt like they were saying I was an irresponsible mother, that I had been negligent by not reporting their birth earlier. I felt angry, sad, annoyed and hurt – that I’d been treated inhumanely.”

Ella-Mae, of Bromley, Kent, was admitted into St Thomas’ Hospital, South London, 14 weeks into her pregnancy due to a weakened cervix.

She was put on bed rest in isolation and gave birth at her twins at 26 weeks.

Her twins then spent 12 weeks in neonatal intensive care fighting for their lives. Bella and Ruby would spend their first year on oxygen around the clock due to a lung disease.

Ella-Mae said: “I want to campaign for the DWP to change their legislation so having babies prematurely is automatically accepted by the DWP as special circumstances.

“When you are looking after children who are severely ill you are so vulnerable. I feel like the DWP penalises parents who are already suffering.

It was callous, uncaring and unethical when parents who have a child in NICU deserve compassion, understanding and support. Parents in this situation should not be thinking about finances and submitting applications when they are just desperately trying to get through the day. Being treated with compassion would have made a big difference to my mental health.”

She added: “Parents should not suffer economically because of their children being in NICU. There is no greater exception I can think of than having your children in hospital treading the fine line between life and death.”

The girls came home from hospital in February 2019 – a couple of weeks before their due date – and a month later Ella reported their birth to the DWP and asked for girls to be added to the child element of her universal credit. Alice Wright, 33, of Norfolk, gave birth to twins George and Alexander after 28 weeks in April 2020, the start of lockdown, and was so traumatised by the experience that she did not feel capable of submitting a child benefit claim until they were two.

Then she realised it could only be backdated by three months. She said: “It was incredibly frustrating, I didn’t know there was a time limit. My focus has been on keeping the boys alive, not filling out paperwork. We need compassion and empathy. We are living month to month – it can be really hard to make ends meet. The child benefit would make a huge difference for us.”

Shauna Leven, of the Twins Trust charity, said: “The system is weighted against parents with twins, triplets or more. Many of our community have experienced the strife of having babies in neonatal care and the web of bureaucracy that follows.”

Lucy Cadd, of law firm Leigh Day, said: “It is inconceivable Ella-Mae could have been expected to organise her universal credit claim. We hope her case will encourage parents in similar situations to challenge a refusal to backdate.”

A Government spokesman said backdating child benefit beyond three months would make it hard to verify and each universal credit case is considered on its own merit.

EXCLUSIVE: Through its first-look film deal at Universal Pictures, 87North has set up Mrs. K , a re-imagining of Yuhang Ho’s 2016 Malaysian-Hong Kong cult hit, at the studio.

Author and humorist Mishna Wolff , best known for her memoir, I’m Down , is set to write the screenplay. Her debut script for the film Werewolves Within, which made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival followed by Berlin, was met with critical acclaim when it was released theatrically by IFC last year.

Mrs. K is a fast-paced, darkly humorous action movie featuring an unlikely heroine. Mrs. K’s peaceful life is disrupted, and family threatened, when trouble brews.

Producers are 87North’s Kelly McCormick and David Leitch. EPs are Paperheart Limited’s Yuhang Ho and Lorna Tee, and Conor Zorn.

Universal EVP of Production Jay Polidoro will oversee the project for the studio. Guy Danella and Max Jacoby will oversee for 87North.

87North has had the No. 1 film over the last two weekends, Leitch’s Bullet Train, which has grossed $114.4M WW to date. Leitch’s directing and producing credits at the global box office have racked up close to $2.4 billion. 87North’s next movie to hit the big screen is Universal’s Violent Night on Dec. 2. 87North is represented by CAA.

Wolff was staffed on season 2 of Abe Forsythe’s Peacock series, Wolf Like Me, and is set to adapt cult-classic Night of the Comet as a series for Orion with Automatik and Vertigo producing. Her memoir I’m Down is taught at high schools and colleges throughout the country, and is featured and on display at the Northwest African-American Museum & the Nobel Peace Museum in Oslo, and was recognized & lauded by Oprah Winfrey and her book club. Wolff has been a contributor to NPR, and is an alumna of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab & the Sundance Episodic Lab. She is repped by CAA and Grandview.

A MUM has told of her heartbreak after she lost her baby when she was nine months pregnant just days before her due date.

Ceri Amphlette, 36, had been two days into her maternity leave when she began to experience cramping but never imagined what was to come.

Up until that point the mum, 36, who lives in Rugby, Warks, had experienced no major complications with her pregnancy and had no reason to believe that anything would go wrong.

Speaking exclusively to Fabulous, business development manager Ceri says: “We became pregnant quite quickly, it was only about three months in that we found out we were expecting.

“I was 33 at the time and my partner was 34 so we were glad to be getting things underway in the parenting department as we had met slightly later in life.

“My pregnancy was relatively smooth, I had gestational diabetes and a few high blood pressure readings but nothing that was of concern, or so we thought.”

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The couple had been planning her home birth in October 2020 when her world came crashing down.

“I was quite scared of hospitals and at the time we were in lockdown so I wanted to make sure Billy would be able to be with me,” Ceri explains.

“I finished work on October 9th and my due date was the 19th – I started cramping on Friday evening so I called the hospital.

“I was told to monitor it and call the home birth number once my contractions got to a certain distance apart.

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“We got prepared and set up the birthing pool – there was still pain but there was no regularity to it.”

Believing that there was nothing amiss after following instructions from the hospital, the couple went to bed but the following morning Ceri’s concerns grew.

“I had an anterior placenta which meant that my placenta was at the front and I couldn’t really feel movement very strongly,” she explains.

“Typically I would feel a few rolls in the morning but I hadn’t felt anything.

“I took my blood sugar and discovered it was really low which can be a sign that you’re in labour so to be on the safe side we went to the hospital to get checked out.”

When they arrived at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire, English teacher Billy, 37, was kept in the waiting room due to Covid restrictions while Ceri was taken into the hospital for tests.

“They couldn’t find the heartbeat so then another midwife came in before eventually a consultant was called,” Ceri says.

“It was when they allowed Billy into the examination room that I knew something was really wrong.

“I felt totally numb as the consultant confirmed that there was no heartbeat and we had lost our baby boy.

“I can’t tell you how I felt, it was just a total blur of confusion and heartbreak, we had no idea what had happened.”

During a C-section to remove the baby, midwives discovered that Ceri had suffered a placenta abruption causing the placenta to almost totally come away from the uterus.

“It was a silent abruption so when they delivered our baby Rufus they discovered a lot of blood that had been trapped behind him,” Ceri says.

“At that point I started to go downhill quite rapidly. All of my levels were dropping and we weren’t entirely sure what was going on.

“It later transpired that I had haemorrhage in the C-section and the reason for that was because I had something called HELLP syndrome.”

Hemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes and Low Platelets (HELLP),is a rare liver and blood clotting disorder that can affect pregnant women.

“Thanks to our Cuddle Cot we were able to have Rufus with us for the whole time.”

Ceri Amphlette

It’s most likely to occur immediately after the baby is delivered, but can appear any time after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and in rare cases before 20 weeks. It is fatal in a quarter of cases.

Ceri’s condition meant that for three days after the birth she was on a high dependency unit and for the first 12 hours was barely conscious.

Typically families can only spend around 12 hours with their baby after they’ve passed before they need to be transferred to the hospital mortuary.

If that had been the case then Ceri would not have been able to spend any time with Rufus due to her condition.

However, Billy and Ceri were able to spend a total of six days thanks to a refrigerated ‘Cuddle Cot.’

“Thanks to our Cuddle Cot we were able to have Rufus with us for the whole time,” Ceri says.

“If we hadn’t had that I wouldn’t really have any memories as a family because I was so unwell initially.

“It also meant that we had time to introduce our parents to Rufus as well as our siblings – many of whom hadn’t seen much of us during the pregnancy thanks to COVID.

“We got to do lots of the things we had dreamt about doing such as taking him for a walk giving him a bath and just take time to take him all in, his face and his features and the way he felt even the little freckle in his ear.

“It helped us so much because it felt like we got to know him a little bit.

“Before he was born I wasn’t sure if I would be able to hold him or even if I wanted to see him – I was very scared as I’d never seen anybody that had passed away.

“But we’ve got memories we can share now.

“It didn’t make losing Rufus harder, it helped us process that loss, being able to choose when we were ready to say goodbye to him gave us a bit more control back in that situation.”

After six days with Rufus, he had to be sent for his post-mortem leaving Billy and Ceri to say a heartbreaking goodbye.

Ceri recalls: “I don’t think we could ever have been prepared for how difficult it would be to say goodbye.

“I still can’t believe that we were able to walk out of the hospital.

“We left him with our bereavement midwife holding him but it was horrific because we had to walk past the families who had just welcomed their babies.

“We had to return to the car where the car seat was waiting for Rufus and we had to go home without him to our very silent house.

“It was incredibly traumatic.”

During her time in hospital Ceri and Billy set up a fundraiser to raise money for more Cuddle Cots for other grieving parents.

While they had initially set out to fund half the cost of one cot, which cost around £1,750 each, they ended up making a great deal more.

Spurred on by their success the couple set up an official charity in their babies name with Remember Rufus dedicated to raising money to buy more Cuddle Cots for hospitals across the country.

“Remember Rufus has been incredibly beneficial to our healing journey,” Ceri says.

“It’s really helped me to have that time to focus on Rufus, it has been my way of parenting him.

“It allows us to say his name and talk about him and tell his story and keep him alive in our family.”

Billy and Ceri are now parents to their rainbow baby Aldous who was born in November 2021, and she admits that the pregnancy was an incredibly difficult experience.

“My second pregnancy was horrific because of my first experience – we didn’t actually tell anybody that we were pregnant until he was born,” Ceri says.

“We genuinely didn’t believe that he was going to come home with us until we actually got him home.

“We were very well looked after, we had extra scans – he was delivered slightly early to limit the risk of a placental abruption and HELLP syndrome.”

Eight-month-old Aldous is a happy and healthy baby, and his parents have been careful to make sure Rufus is a big part of his little brother’s life.

“Aldous comes along to our charity outings to drop the Cuddle Cots off which has been 21 now,” Ceri says.

“Rufus is his middle name and we have a special shelf dedicated to his brother in his nursery.

“Every Sunday at the time that Rufus is born at 16:46 we go into the nursery and read him a story as a family which has become a lovely tradition.

“Rufus may not be with us but he is still very much a part of our family and I will always be his mum.”

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Ceri and Billy are now fundraising for more cuddle cots in their son’s memory. You can donate to the cause here https://www.rememberrufus.org/

The couple have also organised a half marathon to raise money for the charity – you can sign up here https://llhm.co.uk/