A MUM has spoken of the heartbreak felt at Christmas as she backs an appeal to help people who are suffering.

While others are celebrating, Claire Delaney admits she struggles through the festive season.

The 38-year-old from Butterwick Field in Horwich lost her two-month old daughter Gabrielle in Christmas, 2008 to heart and circulatory disease shortly after her husband Colin died from the same condition.

This year she is backing the British Heart Foundation’s Christmas Appeal to raise more than half a million pounds to help fund pioneering research into heart and circulatory disease.

She said: "It is very, very difficult. Gabrielle was born on October 17 and passed away on December 18, so it is extremely difficult time of year.

"Everyone is celebrating, but I don't feel like celebrating."

Colin developed endocarditis, a rare infection of the inner lining of the heart contracted after surgery to replace his mitral valve. He died on Bank Holiday in 2008 when he was just 29 – and when Mrs Delaney was 15 weeks pregnant.

Four days after Gabrielle was born, she was diagnosed with a rare form of congenital heart disease called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, which meant she only had half a working heart.

Although doctors tried to operate, Gabrielle’s condition deteriorated and she went into heart failure. She was transferred to Derian House Hospice in Chorley and died in her mother's arms a week before Christmas, 2008.

Mrs Delaney’s 12-year-old son Cameron was also diagnosed with the same condition as his dad in Christmas 2011 and is being monitored closely.

The appeal is a chance for Mrs Delaney, who runs Winter Hey Lane children's clothing shop A Step in Time, to support others and help raise awareness of the condition which affects 4,000 babies each year.

She adds: “After Colin died, I felt my life was obliterated but I kept repeating to myself that I had to get through it for the sake of my baby and my son. So when I lost my little girl so soon after, it was just inconceivable.

“I found it impossible to get through the day. I gave up my job as a conveyancer for a firm in Manchester, where I’d been working 16-hour days, and truly felt like I wanted to give up. When something like this happens, it’s so difficult to try and look to the future as life as you know it completely changes.

“I have a new partner now and we have a little girl Ava, who’s just started school. But when she was born, I couldn’t bear to set foot in a baby shop to buy her clothes because of the memories of Gabrielle.

“I now want to do as much as I can to help the thousands of families across the UK who have lost a loved one to heart and circulatory disease. One day, we will find better treatments or ways to prevent a range of conditions that take so many innocent lives.”

To find out more visit christmas.bhf.org.uk.