Don't know if can do a link to this Searched page - through The Times. So here is it in full. It must have been horrific for the mw there, let alone the parents. How must they feel, guilt and regret must not even be close.
Parents refuse help as 'natural birth' baby dies
By A Correspondent - The TIMES 23/04/04
A MOTHER and father refused to let midwives intervene and cut the umbilical cord in a home birth, which led to the death of their baby girl, an inquest was told yesterday.
Elizabeth and Shaun Hamill, from Cheltenham, held a strong belief that the birth of their daughter Rosie should be ?natural? and rejected the advice and assistance of midwives when the birth became complicated.
A midwife discovered the baby was in the breech position two weeks before Mrs Hamill went into labour on November 18, 2002.
Professor Gordon Stirrat, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Bristol University, said Mr and Mrs Hamill insisted on having Rosie at home, despite being told of the serious risks involved in a breech delivery.
On the morning of the birth, the parents refused to let the three midwives help when the baby became stuck with its legs and bottom exposed and its head still inside.
Professor Stirrat said Mrs Hamill was on her hands and knees in her bedroom, which was lit only by candles, and refused to recline to allow the midwives to check the baby?s heartbeat. She also refused to allow them to lift her nightgown to examine her or touch the baby during the delivery.
This led to the baby receiving a restricted oxygen supply for eight minutes and no oxygen at all for 16 minutes.
Professor Stirrat said: ?In my opinion this is the sole cause of the baby?s poor state at birth. The room was cold, it was winter, the baby would have been losing heat, compounding the problem.?
In his statement he said the midwives described the baby as going ?floppy and pale- pink? during the delivery. The delivery took 24 minutes.
The mother then refused to allow the midwives to clamp and cut the umbilical cord for four minutes, he said. ?
Permission was requested by the midwives and was emphatically denied,? he told the inquest.
After four minutes Mrs Hamill ?reluctantly? agreed to have the cord cut and was persuaded to hand over Rosie, who was not breathing, to the midwives who tried to resuscitate her, Professor Stirrat said. They then dialled 999.
Pathologist Dr Hugh White said the baby died when the ventilator was turned off four days later at Southmead Hospital in Bristol. He said Rosie died because of a lack of oxygen at birth. The official cause of death was given as cerebral hypoxia caused by an unassisted breech delivery.
Mrs Hamill was taken to Cheltenham General Hospital, where it was discovered she had been carrying twins.
She eventually agreed to have a Caesarean section and delivered a baby girl called Flora on November 18. The couple had already delivered two children at their home in 1999 and 2000.
Detective Constable Russ Williams told the inquest that hospital staff had raised concerns about Rosie?s delivery and contacted police and social services. He said that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided not to prosecute and that it could not find any breach or negligence of duty on the part of the midwives.
Recording a verdict of want of attention at birth, Paul Forrest, Avon?s county coroner, said it was clear the couple held a belief in natural birth but he appreciated the difficult position of the midwives.