TO look at Molly and Brendan Ray, no-one would ever imagine that at one point their lives hanged in the balance.

But both of the happy, healthy children had their young lives saved by expert teams at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford just hours after they were born.

Now their mother Gemma Smith has urged others not to forgo the 20-week scan which spotted life-threatening abnormalities and led to emergency treatment.

Last night Dr Lucy Mackillop, a consultant obstetrician at the John Radcliffe Hospital, said it was very rare for two siblings to have unrelated life-threatening conditions that are picked up by the scan.

When Miss Smith and her partner Karl Ray, from Didcot, became pregnant with their first child, Molly, five years ago the young mother feared the worst when a 20-week scan showed abnormalities. She said: “Molly had something called bright bowel, which can be a sign of Down’s Syndrome.

“When they tell you something like that is wrong, you just can’t believe it. You think why is this happening to me?”

Molly, four, was born nine weeks early by emergency caesarean section. But the bright bowel had actually been a sign of a condition called twisted gut. Molly was taken away from Miss Smith for emergency lifesaving surgery, and the young mother was unable to hold her baby for three days while she was treated in the Special Care Baby Unit.

When she fell pregnant with her second child, Brendan, now one, the fear was repeated when the 20-week scan revealed a life-threatening heart condition. She said: “Everything was fine until the 20-week scan.

“Then one of the doctors noticed a skip in the heart beat. The feeling was awful – it was like a nightmare.”

When Brendan was born he was diagnosed with a pulmonary valve condition, and a deformed lung. He too was taken away and Miss Smith was unable to see her son for four days.

Brendan was also one of the first children to undergo surgery at Southampton General Hospital, under a unique agreement set up with Oxford.

Consultants at the children’s heart unit in Oxford and Southampton have worked together since the JR suspended child heart surgery last year amid a shake-up.

Now both children are healthy and happy, Miss Smith wants to thank the teams who worked round the clock to save them and urge other mothers to opt for the 20-week scan.

She said: “If I hadn’t had the scan they wouldn’t have known what was wrong and been on stand-by. It saved their lives.

“I will always be grateful to the hospital for what they have done for Molly and Brendan.

“Thanks to them I have both of my children.”