LOOK at her now - toddler Jasmin Frost is a picture of health and happiness, after coming close to death as a baby.

Jasmin, now two, developed meningicoccal septicaemia in June 1999, when she was seven months old.

She spent eight days in intensive care, first at York District Hospital (YDH) and then at Leeds General Infirmary, and her grateful parents, Paul and Nichola, still find relief in the fact that she pulled through and has gone on to be a healthy child.

For Nichola, who is now expecting their second child, one of the only pieces of advice she can give to other anxious parents is "go with your instinct".

She said: "It really is such a frightening illness and it happens so quickly. But parents know the child the best and if they are at all concerned they should go to hospital."

Paul, 34, and Nichola, 31, of Sheriff Hutton, took baby Jasmin to YDH one evening when she was "off colour" and started developing a slight rash.

By the following morning Jasmin became dangerously ill as her blood supply shut down to protect her heart and lungs from the blood-borne virus.

Nichola said: "If she had not already been there at York District Hospital they have told us she would not have survived.

"But today we are a normal healthy family, no one would ever know that we nearly lost her. She's recovered quickly from her ordeal and is just as cheeky as the next child.

"We never thought something like this could happen to us, it's always something that happens to other people. But it did and we've survived."

Nichola, a mobile hairdresser, added: "We try not to panic when Jasmin is ill, but it is difficult. I'm sure I'll panic like mad with my new baby until it's able to talk and tell me how it feels."