Fabienne never found out why she went into labour three months too early. But on a quiet afternoon in June 2007, she was hit by accelerating contractions and was rushed to the nearest hospital in rural Switzerland, near Lausanne. When her son, Hugo, was born at 26 weeks of gestation rather than the typical 40, he weighed just 950 grams and was immediately placed in intensive care. Three days later, doctors told Fabienne that ultrasound pictures of Hugo's brain indicated that he had had a severe haemorrhage from his immature blood vessels. "I just exploded into tears," she says. Both she and her husband understood that the prognosis for Hugo was grim: he had a very high risk of cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that can lead to a life of severe disability. The couple agreed that they did not want to subject their child to that. "We immediately told the doctors that we did not want fierce medical intervention to keep him alive - and saw the relief on the doctors' faces," recalls Fabienne, who requested that her surname not be used. That night was the most tortured of her life.
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