CHRISTMAS 1990 was special for the Quirke family. It was baby Morgan’s first-ever festive season, and for her parents, Anita and Gerry, a time of wonder and hope.

The tiny infant, then just a few weeks old, was the miracle baby who they hoped would heal years of pain and sorrow.

Tragically, before giving birth to Morgan, Anita had suffered the loss of not one but two babies, Nicola and Emma, from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Their deaths had left her so deeply traumatised she was afraid to even think about having another baby.

And then she heard about the work of the now-retired Dr Michael Sills from Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, who was involved with research into cot death and the use of apnoea alarms, which detect when a baby’s breathing changes.

“If it wasn’t for Dr Sills I wouldn’t have dared to have Morgan. She wouldn’t be here now,” says Anita, 53. “I went to see him and asked if I could have an apnoea alarm and he said most definitely.”

And so the couple, who have been married for 23 years, decided to go ahead and try for a much-wanted addition to their family. Anita already had a daughter, Fiona, from a previous marriage, and was desperate to hold a baby again.

Morgan came along on December 2 and, from the start, was “a fantastic baby.”

Anita says: “We have had 21 years of bliss and if we could go back and do it all again with her I would. I wouldn’t think twice.”

The Examiner first told Anita’s story in 1991 when Morgan was five months old and already past the age when her two sisters had died.

Anita asked us to revisit the family this year so that they could celebrate their daughter’s 21st birthday by offering hope to others.

“I want to say to anyone who has experienced what I did that it’s worth trying again,” she said. “There’s so much more support out there now. There is hope.”

Anita, who was just 16 when her first baby Nicola was born and 20 when Emma arrived, was 33 when she gave birth to Morgan.

The early months of her youngest daughter’s life were understandably fraught with worry, especially as the apnoea alarm went off two or three times a week.

“For the first weeks I slept with my hand in the cot and then after four months I moved downstairs with her so that I could sleep on the sofa with the alarm receiver on the pillow at the side of me,” said Anita.

“The alarms work because if the baby stops breathing the alarm goes off and shocks them back to breathing again.

“ It has to be re-set every time it goes off, so until she was two years old she slept in a cot next to our bed.”

It was only when Morgan became a toddler and asked to move into her own room that Anita was able to finally relax.

It is with tremendous satisfaction that Anita and Gerry have watched their daughter, who works as a shop assistant, grow into a young woman.

She recently moved out of the family home in Milnsbridge to live with her boyfriend, but still speaks to her parents every day and visits them several times a week.

The Quirkes are now grandparents. Anita’s daughter Fiona, 36, has three children and Gerry’s daughter has a son.

But the legacy of her cot death experience has meant that Anita, who is a volunteer manager at a charity shop in Milnsbridge, is afraid to look after babies.

“I just couldn’t be with my grandchildren on my own when they were small. I wouldn’t look after them until they were two,” she said.

When she lost her own two babies, 37 and 23 years ago, research into cot death was in its infancy and to this day Anita has no idea why Nicola and Emma died at just four months old.

Her grief, she says, was not handled well by the health professionals around her and there were no support groups to which she could belong.

“I know things are different now, but it’s still such a terrible experience that it makes it difficult for women to try again.

“What I want to say is that you can have a happy family. We’ve been very happy.”