to think this story cannot be true? Non English speaking mother did not know how to feed her baby causing brain damage, as the NHS did not provide a translator.

[WannaBeWonderWoman]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5612889/Sri-Lankan-refugee-couple-set-multi-million-pound-NHS-payout.html

and if it is there must be something missing?

If there's not, this country has gone mad!

Cheeseislife - the staff should have responded when the mother tried to get help. They could have given her a ready made bottle or taken her to the kitchen and showed her how to make a bottle with minimal words used.

We don't know if she was trying to breastfeed, but a midwife could have observed her trying, again with no words and seen if the baby was latching on properly. They could have weighed the baby before and after a feed, checked if he had wet nappies.

No where does it say she refused to give a bottle or to let her baby be tube fed, she quite simply was ignored.

Cheeseislife, you really have got that compassion thing sorted haven't you? I take it that when you go abroad you learn "a few key words" to enable you to talk your way through any possible situation. You know like appendicitis, heart attack, acute food poisoning, attack by shark.blocked toilet in the bathroom....... All the basic stuff.

I believe this
My milk didn’t come in.

The midwife just didn’t believe me
I didn’t know what to do - this wasn’t covered in antenatal classses ( I have a medical condition known to reduce milk production) i was in hospital for 12 hours no one professional spent anytime with me
Luckily my husband took charge and insisted we ff
This was 2002
So yeah if an English speaking woman could almost slip through the net I can totally see why a non- English speaking woman could

I knew they were meant to feed, I just didn't know at what point it would become a problem that he hadn't. 'I knew enough about feeding that there would be hunger cues, but there weren't any - he just cried briefly at birth, wouldn't latch and then quickly went to sleep. I put him to the breast, sleepy, several times and he just sort of slipped off. I was entirely alone in a single room and no one asked me whether he had fed until the next shift came on, then they all panicked and had a go at me for "not saying anything".

Even in 2009 they checked baby had been fed before leaving and where signs up in many different languages for a wide range of things in the maternity units they where also more than happy to shove bottles at unsuccessfully trying to breastfeed mums.

Saying the baby hadn’t been fed in 15hours makes it seem like they (Mum or Dad) didn’t even attempt to feed the baby rather than kept trying but there was a problem. Forgetting to change a nappy in the crazy world of hours old baby I could understand but not feeding them for 15hours no matter what your age or what you speak is abhorrent.

This hospital has had many problems in their maternity dept. There have been linked to many deaths and malpractices

A friend believed that NCT classes had told her the baby’s stomach is no bigger than a marble, for the first day they fed him a little amount very often, he got jaundice and was readmitted and they were told otherwise but yes two English graduates in effect starved their baby for the first day believing it was correct

The midwives should have spotted they were in trouble

I’m a native English speaker. I was 19 when I gave birth the first time, I was incredibly clueless. I knew my baby fed from my breast but I hadn’t a clue how to latch him properly or if he was sucking right or getting any milk. Some of the midwives that dealt with me were unbelievably horrible. Brusque and sharp and totally unapproachable. If it hadn’t been for the lovely midwives I could have ended up being discharged with a baby not feeding properly and no idea how to spot it. I can easily see how this would happen with a non English speaking first time Mum.

I have a similar story. My baby was born a few weeks early. Didn't seem interested in feeding. I popped her on the boob a few times, she sucked for a bit so I assumed she'd fed. Nobody checked before that she'd latched on properly or anything.
We went home the following day. Later on that day she looked like she was having a fit so we took her to A and E.
They tube fed her. After 5 days of syringe feeding her, we gave up and bottle fed her my expressed breast milk.
Having since breastfed my son, there is no way on earth she was breastfeeding properly. I thought I was doing it but she was just sucking, not feeding.

As a first time Mum, I didn't have a clue. I tried restarting breastfeeding but it was so hard trying to find a breastfeeding counsellor it never worked.

Further to my PP there are many ways to communicate without words. For instance they could have shown her a clock and with a bottle mimed feeding the baby whilst pointing at 12 (for instance), then at 3, then at 6 etc.

I would have thought medical staff were trained to deal with patients they couldn't communicate with.

www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2018/716.html&query=(Rajatheepan)

Apologies if someone has already posted this earlier in the thread!

^I believe this
My milk didn’t come in.
The midwife just didn’t believe me
I didn’t know what to do - this wasn’t covered in antenatal classses ( I have a medical condition known to reduce milk production) i was in hospital for 12 hours no one professional spent anytime with me^

heather your milk wouldn’t have been there in the 12 hours after birth. It would be colostrum for the first couple of days and then milk come so in around day 3

DS was born at 36 weeks and was over 7lbs so despite having a C section I was left to my own devices. To cut a long story short he ended up having seizures due to hypoglycaemia and was rushed to NICU at 48hrs old. The antenatal and labour ward were brilliant it was the post natal m/wives who were a shower of shit. They ignored the fact he was prem due to his good weight and failed to check him regularly.
Hypoglycaemia and jaundice is very common in prem boys and, after nearly losing him, protocol was changed and prem babies who do not need special care are now monitored closely for hypoglycaemia in our local unit.
Fortunately it was a student midwife who picked up he was having seizures while trying to keep me awake for a night feed. After 48 hrs without sleep ( I had a complicated end to pregnancy resulting in prem csection) I couldn’t stay awake to feed him. And as a result he had no long term damage.
The problem this baby had would have been compounded by language barrier since the signs are very subtle. DS was very sleepy and I don’t think he cried until he was starting to recover at 4 days old so comments about crying/screaming hungry babies are incorrect. Hypoglycaemic babies are too weak to cry and eventually become commatosed, suffering seizures, they are known as jittery babies.
Regardless of the status of the parents the NHS are liable.

In fact, what happens with deaf women? Are they just left to get on with it completely?

I agree with wizzywig. Surely it’s common knowledge across all cultures that babies need feeding??!

What I don’t understand is when I was pregnant two years ago and at antinatal appointments the waiting room was always full of interpreters and each woman who needed on had one, they were circling the delivery suites also why on earth were there none in this hospital?

A friend believed that NCT classes had told her the baby’s stomach is no bigger than a marble

I’ve been told this too? That it’s the size of a marble and doesn’t stretch for a few days, so that is why colostrum is the perfect food source at the start.
Is this not true?

I was just feeling rather disbelieving of this and then I remembered when ds was born how he didn't feed for hours and no one seemed to care. He just wasn't interested. I got more and more scared and in the end a ward assistant gave him a bottle even though I was supposed to be breast feeding. I was confused by the whole situation tbh, knowing that I was supposed to be supported in BF, having had this drummed into me at all the classes but just desperate for him to eat something. I was a pretty sensible woman in her late twenties but didn't have a clue. I don't know if they were waiting for him to get hungry so he'd make the effort to latch on or what the plan was, they were just very casual and uninterested. Turned out he was jaundiced when the paediatrician examined him and at that point there was a big hoo hah about Feeding! Feeding! Feeding! to help get rid of the jaundice. It was all a bit rubbish really looking back.

Worth reading the judgement. She did feed him, or attempt to, but there were problems with breastfeeding. As is hardly unusual, especially in first time mothers, but they didn't receive the proper checks or support. They were discharged against father's wishes, while the baby was still visibly distressed and without it being clear that adequate feeding had been established, and whilst in hospital she'd been going to the midwives station for help and been ignored. The medical evidence was clear that the problems were caused by inadequate feeding and the hospital failed in their duty of care to ensure baby was being properly fed.

The article states that the mother was "naturally timid, and would therefore smile at the midwives when she caught their attention" when she was in the hospital. Maybe that explains why they didn't realise that she needed any help?

My personal experience was that I was told about the red flags for a newborn who wasn't getting enough to eat in my antenatal classes, but then when I was staying on the postnatal ward after my c-section, the staff encouraged me to ignore my concerns because they were overstretched and very understaffed and just wanted me off the ward. One nurse told me that lack of wet nappies wasn't anything to worry about because DD "looked happy" (she didn't - she'd screamed for six hours straight).

BlueSapp, the interpreters are not normally based in hospitals, clinics or health centres, they need to be booked by the hospital staff and come when required. Or can be called over the phone via Language Line.
(I am an interpreter myself)

I have a PhD, have been to two antenatal classes specificly about breastfeeding, have read a book about it to prepare, and had incredibly supportive midwifes. Yet... My DS has not fed for the first 24h. Then we reluctantly decided to give him a small bottle of formula, which he threw up, and only then he was well enough to start sucking properly on the breast. I knew he had to be fed and I knew what good latch looked like and I knew he was meant to be crying sometimes, but what do you do when he's got a nipple in his mouth and is doing nothing? Fortunately my midwifes were 1) amazing 2) not spread as thin as the ones in this case.

It's very very sad, but I do not for one second blame the mother or the midwifes. They should have been given more resources.

I guess either you believe that the courts did their due diligence and came to the conclusion that the NHS failed a vulnerable woman and therefore need to bear the costs of the damage they caused...or you don't. They have the information and evidence, we don't.

I can well believe this , post emergency C-section , no-one had the time to try and get DS to feed while I was on the labour ward and when I was transferred to the post natal ward I was dumped on the bed completely flat and left to sleep off the GA , I woke up a few hours later to find DS had been whisked off to special care as a jittery baby. That was 10 hours after he was born. I am grateful that someone noticed.