IN 1970 she was among the first women to give birth at a small specialist high-risk pregnancy unit at the back of the old Radcliffe Infirmary.

The clinic, which was pioneering better methods of treating high blood pressure in pregnancy, had just been set up at the Walton Street hospital. The following year it was officially named the Silver Star clinic.

Now both her son Mark and the Silver Star have reached 40, Jane Glanville, of Woodstock Road, Witney, looks back at the groundbreaking unit which saved both of their lives.

Mrs Glanville, 65, remembers the first time she realised something was not quite right during her pregnancy with her one and only child.

She said: “I was having a check-up. I had noticed quite a lot of spotting but hadn’t thought anything of it and wasn’t even going to mention it.

“As soon as I told my GP he knew something was wrong and they sent me to the old Radcliffe.

“I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I now know it was pre-eclampsia.”

Pre-eclampsia is a complication of pregnancy in which women experience high blood pressure, protein in their urine, and may develop other symptoms and serious complications to mother and baby.

After her condition was diagnosed, the team at the Silver Star cared for Mrs Glanville, who at the time lived in Long Hanborough.

She spent up to 10 days at a time in the unit for the remaining two months of her pregnancy.

The clinic celebrates its 40th anniversary this year with a fundraising event, the Silver Star Stroll in the Park, on Sunday, May 22.

It started out life in 1970 as a small unit which was looking at how high blood pressure could affect mothers and babies during pregnancy.

By the following year, a full-time midwife had been appointed and the unit had recorded the first electronic record of a baby’s heart beat before labour. It moved to the JR in 1972.

By 1975 Silver Star had gained funding to appoint the first full-time monitoring midwife. As a result, stillbirth rate for mothers with pre-eclampsia dropped more than five-fold in Oxfordshire.

Mrs Glanville said she, her husband Peter, 66, and her son Mark, who lives in Witney, would always be grateful for the care they received. She said: “I always tell Mark he will never know how lucky I am to have him.

“I don’t know what I’d have done if anything had happened to him. And it is thanks to the Silver Star that it didn’t.“ Prof Chris Redman set up the unit in 1970. He has since retired but is heavily involved in fundraising for the unit through the Silver Star Society, a special charity set up in its honour.

Referring to the Silver Star Stroll in the Park, he said: “We invite every one who has been born in the Oxford Maternity Unit or has had her children there and all dads, partners, grannies, grandads, brothers and sisters.

“Come and celebrate the achievements of the last 40 years, help us raise money for a new state-of-the-art scanner and help create another 40 years of fantastic maternity care.”