A TIDWORTH couple have revealed they carry the ashes of their six-day old baby around with them to make sure he is still part of the family.

Becki and Jon Roden, currently living in Germany but originally of Tidworth, held their baby, Tommy, as he died after developing sepsis on July 3, less than a week after being born.

The couple, who have three other children under the age of 10, put Tommy’s ashes in a jar decorated with teddy bears after he was cremated in Salisbury at the end of July, and have taken him on family days out and to the park.

Becki said: “Tommy will always be our fourth little boy. When people question it I say, ‘Well, you wouldn’t leave your baby at home.”

Tommy was born eight weeks premature on June 27, but originally appeared to be strong and his oxygen levels were being gradually reduced at the hospital.

But at five days old, he contracted an infection which developed into sepsis, a blood poisoning.

His parents sat with him through the night, but doctors warned them Tommy may not survive.

Doctors continued to work to save Tommy through the night, but his heart rate had dropped below 40 beats per minute.

“I knew he was really poorly, and he couldn’t fight any more so I told them they could stop,” Becki said. “We didn’t want him to be in any pain.”

“They took all the wires off him and laid him in my arms. He took a breath in, let it out, and he was gone.

“It was heartbreaking because he was doing so well but in just hours, sepsis took our baby.”

Becki said it “feels natural” to take Tommy with them when they go out as a family, and that his siblings “talk about him all the time, and they draw pictures of them and him, and the things he is doing up in heaven”.

The couple are raising money for the UK Sepsis Trust through a bike-ride in Tommy’s memory, cycling 10 miles for every hour Tommy was alive.

The total journey, 1,250 miles, will take them and members of Jon’s regiment from John O’Groats to Land’s End, and back to Tidworth.

Jon, a serving soldier, said: the ride would “honour Tommy’s life, and to help research the infection so that it never happens again to anyone”.

He said: “I am raising money so Sepsis UK can ensure this awful, heartbreaking tragedy never happens again to a newborn.

To donate, visit justgiving.com/fundraising/ridefortommy.