We are delighted to share with you our latest Annual Report & Accounts for our last financial year.
When you donate to Tiny Tickers your impact is felt across the UK by babies with CHD, their families and the health professionals who care for them. Our little charity continues to thrive thanks to your generous support - and we really can’t thank you enough. We continue to weather the impact that COVID and the cost of living crisis has had on the charity sector and remain incredibly grateful to all those who have supported us; in turn allowing us to keep supporting those affected by congenital heart defects at their time of need.
Your support has helped us to…
Place 489 pulse oximetry machines in maternity units across the UK. Pulse Oximetry machines can indicate possible heart or respiratory issues quickly and effectively by measuring the amount of oxygen in the blood. Low oxygen levels can be a key sign that a baby could have a critical heart defect. Not every baby will be born visibly displaying signs and symptoms and without this machine serious defects could go undetected.
Train 2299 sonographers to be better able to spot heart defects during 20-week pregnancy scans. One third of serious heart defects currently go undetected before birth, therefore it is vital that we train and educate as many sonographers and health professionals as possible. 2022 was our best year for face-to-face training so far.
Hold 12 parent-to-be six week virtual peer support groups, 10 six week virtual peer support groups for parents and 20 regular virtual drop-in sessions. At Tiny Tickers our message for heart parents is always “you are not alone.” The ability to speak to others going through, or who have been through, a similar situation is often a very valuable source of support for a lot of heart parents.
As a small charity, nothing we have achieved, or will achieve, is possible without the generosity of our amazing supporters, including you.
We hope you find the enclosed report of interest, and that it helps deliver a picture of how your funding helps make our vision a reality - we want every baby with CHD to have the best chance of survival and the highest possible quality of life.
Every February we celebrate tiny hearts, and this year is no different. We've been sharing stories, photos and wonderful fundraising efforts all week. A huge thank you for your past support. Thanks to you we can continue doing all we can to make sure tiny hearts get the best possible start in life.
The countdown is now on until the end of the official Tiny Tickers Heart Week 2023, but our annual celebration of Heart Heroes takes place every year in February – and you can get involved all year round!
So if you haven't got around to it, have been a bit poorly, or simply didn't know what to get up to, here are some ways to show your support:
Every penny you have donated will make a huge difference to what we can do.
Thank you for being a Heart Hero!
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Giving Tuesday took place on Tuesday of this week. Over the past four years, our Giving Tuesday fundraising campaigns have raised thousands of £s to help babies with serious heart conditions and their families. We're so grateful to everyone who has supported these appeals.
However, we know things are really tough this year.
That's why this Giving Tuesday we didn't ask for donations. We asked for our supporters to share our life-saving Think HEART message. On the day itself our message was shared over 197,000 times and it's still being shared each and every day.
Think HEART is an easy way for new parents and those who work with babies to know the five key signs a baby may have an undiagnosed heart condition.
You could help a new parent to recognise that there is something wrong with their baby's heart.
Remember – Think HEART
H = Heart rate
Is your baby’s heart rate too fast or too slow? It should normally be 100-160 beats per minute.
E = Energy
Is your baby sleepy, quiet or floppy? Are they too tired to feed, or falling asleep during feeds?
A = Appearance
Is your baby a pale, waxy, dusky, blue, purple, mottled or grey colour?
R = Respiration
Is your baby breathing too fast or too slowly? – There should normally be 40-60 breaths per minute.
T = Temperature
Is your baby persistently cold to touch – particularly their hands and feet?
Thank you for your past support of our charity and please do share this life-saving message amongst your networks. A baby is born with a serious heart condition every 2 hours. And that's why we are so truly grateful for all the support we receive week in, week out, month after month.
Thank you.
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Happy World Heart Day!
Every year, on the 29th September, we celebrate World Heart Day. It's a global movement to raise awareness of heart disease and, for Tiny Tickers, an opportunity to spread awareness of congenital heart disease (CHD).
We also see World Heart Day as a benchmark, to reflect on what we have achieved over the past year.
Since last World Heart Day we have:
Trained 532 sonographers, giving them the skills and confidence to detect heart defects during pregnancy scans (we've trained 2142 sonographers in total since 2016). Placed 163 life-saving pulse oximetry machines, which can detect heart defects in newborn babies, in maternity units across the UK. This brings the total amount of machines we've placed since 2017 to 408. Hosted 10 virtual support groups and 13 drop-in sessions, helping 59 heart parents needing support during their journey - from their baby's CHD diagnosis, to open heart surgery and beyond. Reached 146,456 new people with our Think HEART message - the five key signs that a baby may have an undiagnosed heart condition.
We couldn't do any of this without your support.
Thank you for helping us keep tiny hearts beating.
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Thanks to a partnership with Children's Heart Surgery Fund (CHSF), last month sonographers at Leeds General Infirmary received our vital training to help them detect the signs of serious heart conditions in babies at the 20-week pregnancy scans.
With the support of CHSF, and your very generous donationns, Tiny Tickers is delivering hands-on, hospital-based cardiac screening training for sonographers throughout the Yorkshire region. The training covers the most up-to-date NHS recommendations on what sonographers should look for when examining the heart as part of the 20-week scan.
Tiny Tickers CEO, Jon Arnold, is also a heart parent as his daughter, Zoe, received life-saving open heart surgery at Leeds General Infirmary. He says, “Early detection of congenital heart disease (CHD) can help save lives and we’re very proud of the part we’ve played in helping make sure more babies than ever before are being detected prior to birth. ”
Zoe was born 14 years ago with a congenital heart defect. Zoe’s heart condition was picked up at Jon’s wife, Andrea’s, 20-week pregnancy scan at Leeds General Infirmary. Jon says, “Zoe was diagnosed with a complete atrioventricular septal defect – a big hole in the middle of all four chambers of the heart, and one valve where there should be two. We also learned at the scan that she would have Down’s Syndrome. She is Daddy’s little princess. A very precious little princess.”
Jon continues, “Early detection of congenital heart defects in babies greatly improves their chances of survival – and this is where Tiny Tickers comes in. We’re dedicated to helping sonographers do the very difficult job of detecting heart defects during the 20-week scan and we’re delighted that CHSF are supporting us in our aims.”
A baby is born with a serious heart condition every two hours in the UK and CHD is one of the biggest killers of infants in the UK. Around half of congenital heart defects are picked up during routine antenatal scanning, but approximately 1,000 newborn babies leave hospital each year with their heart defect undetected. These babies are at serious risk of heart failure and death if their condition is not diagnosed in time.
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