Mother's life gift to unborn baby

Adam Taylor with Nathan who was born fit and healthy

Tributes have been paid to a Teesside mother who sacrificed her own life to save that of her unborn baby.

Bernadette Mimura, 37, from Ingleby Barwick, was diagnosed with breast cancer one month into her pregnancy.

Doctors urged her to try life-saving drugs, but this would have meant terminating the pregnancy.

Ms Mimura refused the drugs and gave birth to her fit and healthy baby, but lived just long enough to see her son, Nathan, baptised.

She was a very positive person, always fill of life, always laughing Adam Taylor

Ms Mimura's partner Adam Taylor, 33, said doctors urged her to try life-saving drugs, but she would not give up on her baby.

Instead, she was given a mild form of chemotherapy to suppress the illness while she carried Nathan.

He was born two months premature after her calcium levels shot up and doctors induced him.

Ms Mimura, who has three other young children, died just weeks later.

Mr Taylor told BBC News: "She was a very positive person, always full of life, always laughing.

"She was life, that's what she was."

The local community is now raising funds to help towards the cost of taking her body back to her native Philippines.