Postmortem results today - need opinions

[Appleseed365]

Our darling daughter died at 40 weeks. Full term.

We are devastated by the loss and asked for a full pm which we received today some 10 weeks on from me giving birth to her.

The cause was IUGR or restricted growth in the last trimester due to the placenta not feeding her properly. If it had been detected by the midwife and I was induced at say 38 weeks I would still have my darling daughter and not a box of ashes.

The independent midwife we hired for our home birth and care never once measured my tummy during my check ups. If she had she would have detected that I was not getting bigger. I mentioned it to her that I didn't appear larger but she dismissed this as unimportant as every body is different as I was a very low risk mum being a professional climbing instructor and very healthy mum to be.

The issue is that in my notes she DID write down sizes of my stomach in my notes. She NEVER measured me. If she had and had plotted this and noticed the slow down I may have had a scan and it would have detected the placenta problem.

Is is STANDARD practice within the NHS to measure at every appointment? Or is this something that is advised but does not happen as routine?

I am 39 and this was to be our first child. I am positive I will try again with my darling husband, I just feel that my midwife was either just following her procedures or was wholly incompetent - why manufacture numbers if no measurements were actually taken?

Tonight I an angry, confused and sad. I miss my darling girl and now feel that my actions or lack of conformity caused her death.

If its not standard practice to measure then why not...

Thanks for reading ladies... I wish you all well in where ever you are in your pregnancies, your losses and your lives.

Here's to happier times.

Xx

Appleseed

If you are planning on progressing this then it might be better for you to not make verbal contact with her. Your NHS consultant is probably not going to be the best person to do this either. If you are convinced that she did not measure you with a tape, and that there are measurements in the notes, then the implication is that the falsified the record. How will she be able to explain that in any was that would satisfy you?

So so sorry to hear about your darling Elsie, Appleseed. I hope that one day the pain will be easier to bear.

Appleseed very sorry to hear about your daughter, it is a very difficult time my thoughts are with you.
We lost our daughter at 40 weeks it seems she died from cord entanglement but also had iugr, i had beginnings of preclampsia, too much fluid around her and an unstable lie. I had growth scans and appointments up to a couple of days before she died and still the problems were not picked up, even had a cs cancelled a week before just before we went into theatre as she had turned and was no longer breech.

I hope that whilst this will not make you feel better it might help you to know what happened to other people, i was 38 and it was my first pregnancy, we placed our trust in the professionals and feel very badly let down we were also concerned about the quality of the notes and assessments that some staff made. I got copies of all my notes and did make a complaint but didn't take it to the next stage as I felt it would be fruitless and would just cause us more distress.

We went on to have another daughter 19months later and had close monitoring, I took aspirin through the pregnancy and it was picked up that growth wasn't progressing so she was delivered at 36 weeks.

Good Luck