THE family of a Bedfont baby girl born at St. Peter's Hospital have donated £640 to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit as a "Thank you" for the care they all received when she was born seven weeks prematurely.

Simran Tucker was due at the end of December 2003 but was born on November 12, weighing only 3lbs, 2oz.

Her father Jag Tucker said: "Simran has made a very good recovery and now weighs more than 10 lbs. The staff in Neonatal Intensive Care looked after her for a month and were so nice to us all we have had so much benefit from the skills of everyone involved. We had a really enjoyable four weeks even though we had the trauma to deal with following her premature birth."

Jag and his wife, Raman, of Northumberland Crescent, Bedfont, already knew St. Peter's well as their son, Davinder, was born at the hospital five years ago. Jag is a manager with an ability and psychometric testing company.

As a "Thank you" the close-knit family all contributed towards the gift for The Early Births Fund, including Simran's uncle, Dharminder Tucker, who runs a corporate dry cleaning service in Staines and Chertsey from his dry cleaning shop in Richmond. The donations were matched by Simran's Dad who was then able to Gift Aid the money, increasing the value of the donation from £500 to £640 as a high rate tax payer.

Mr and Mrs Tucker brought Simran and Davinder, a pupil at Bedfont Infants School, along to St. Peter's Hospital together with a giant cheque on Monday.

The money will go towards The Early Births Fund which has a target of £250,000.

The fund, launched last summer will help buy additional hi-tech equipment for the expanding unit which can care for fragile babies as young as 23 gestation in a 40 week pregnancy.