She was born just 1lb 7oz, but just look at 'sugar bag baby' Jess now

The Highfields School pupil, once no bigger than a bag of sugar, was a picture of health as she celebrated her 16th birthday on Saturday with proud parents Nicky and Phil, brother Joey, 14, and sister Jade, aged 12.

Her delighted 35-year-old mother declared at the family home in East Croft Road, Penn: "She is perfect - it is as if she has been dropped from heaven."

Jess was born 24 weeks prematurely and Nicky recalled: "There seemed to be about 20 doctors in the room and they immediately took her away and put her in an incubator.

"She could not breath for herself and had to be placed on a ventilator for about two months. If she had been born seven days earlier they would not have put her on the ventilator. She was just on the borderline but she never had to have an operation or anything like that.

"I was only 19 at the time, and it was our first child, so it was really scary. The doctors said it was touch and go and gave her no better odds of survival than 50-50 but it is amazing how you cope when you have to. Jess is a real fighter. She knows what she wants and she does it."

Jess was kept in an incubator until New Years Eve and was still on oxygen when finally allowed to go home for the first time the following March. Her parents took an oxygen cylinder with them when they went out with the child but she was soon growing bigger and stronger by the day and has never looked back since. She now stands 5ft 6ins tall, towers over mum and is taller than most of her friends.

Speaking of what Jess is like now, Nicky said: "Jess is only in year 11 now, but already she thinks she'd like to work with children, either in schooling or as a social worker when she's older.

"I like to think that's to do with how she managed to beat all the odds, and that she'll use her experience to help others."

Jess is not the only one of her siblings that was born premature.

Nicky said: "Joey was born at only 29 weeks. Even though he was 2.14 pounds when he was born, he actually seemed to have more health problems than Jess - he had a collapsed lung. But he's fine now too."

Nicky hopes that Jess' story will encourage other parents of premature babies to keep going.

"I would just say to other parents, don't give up, keep going and don't focus on the negative. It can be really hard, because things can go wrong, but you just have to do what you have to for your baby."