FOR the past eight days, baby Lottie Bryon-Edmond has clung to life.

Lottie is very seriously ill and desperately needs a liver transplant.

She is at the top of Britain’s ‘super’ transplant list, which is reserved for the most urgent cases.

But no liver is available and time is against the four-week-old baby, thanks to Britain’s pitiful donor record.

Born seven weeks premature with rare condition neonatal haemochromatosis, when toxic levels of iron accumulate in the baby’s liver while developing in the womb, Lottie’s only chance is a transplant.

Wires seem to protrude from practically every pore of the tot at Birmingham Children’s Hospital but within weeks, this form of treatment will not be enough to keep her alive, no matter how hard the doctors and nurses try to save her.

Her parents, Julie and Chris, marvel at Lottie’s miniature hands, so tiny with perfectly formed fingernails, and wonder what potential lies within them – and if that potential will ever have the chance to blossom in the life of the happy, carefree youngster they dreamed she would be.

All they can do is wait, hope and pray, by the side of their baby’s cot in the paediatric intensive care unit.

Sadly, with only a quarter of Britain’s 62 million people agreeing to become an organ donor – and this figure is still reliant on what their relatives say after their death, Lottie’s fate is perhaps a symbol of the failure of the NHS to attract more understanding and acceptance of transplantation.

Riddled with anxiety and teary-eyed, Julie, a 39-year-old sales manager, who grew up in Great Barr, said: “I had no problems with the pregnancy so all this is a complete shock.

“The wait is agonising.

“We are living on a knife edge because no-one can say what will happen and if Lottie will be okay.