Friend is at inquest into her babies death today

[sweetkitty]

One of my best friends is attending the inquest into her babies death today she is in absolute pieces and I am really worried for her.

She went into hospital for an elective c-section at 38 weeks (she had been having scans every weeks for the past 12 or so weeks of pregnancy) she had had bleeding and abdo pain but they wanted to wait until 38 weeks until the babies lungs were fully developed. During the surgery the registrar cut through the placenta as there was an undiagnosed placenta previa, the registrar was inexperienced in this and called in a senior consultant who came in unscrubbed and yanked the baby out, there was a delay in getting the baby out but she cried on delivery and was given to her father.

My friend suffered a great deal of blood loss and had to be attended to. The baby meanwhile was very cold and moaning (my friend has read to me all the statements from the medical staff) they put a SATs monitor on her and her SATS were normal so she was transferred to the NICU and staff were told to warm her. After a few hours the staff were concerned and called a senior paeditrician who immediately seen the signs of severe blood loss and demanded a transfusion. Only then it was discovered that due to the placenta being cut the baby had lost over 60% of her blood volume.

Despite transfusions and other medical care she died 3 days later of multiple organ failure caused by this blood loss. The senior paeditrician has stated that had he been alerted earlier and a blood transfusion given immediately the outcome would have been different.

My friend and her family are of course totally devastated they feel the baby died of neglect there was a delay in her receiving the treatment she required due to the correct information not being passed on to the relevant medical staff. Each set of staff are trying to blame each other and no one is taking ultimate responsibilty.

I am so worried about my friends health especially if the outcome on the inquest is not what she is expecting. She is relying on clairvoyants to keep a link to her daughter and is very fragile.

Thanks for reading so far I just feel that I had to write this all down, I will be thinking of her all day today.

oh thats awful. hope today goes ok for her.

How sad. Hopefully they will be brought to justice but that doesn't bring her baby back does it.It's hard to believe things like this still happen. Hopefully after today she can begin to heal - how on earth you do that though is unimaginable.

My cousin went through similar 14 yrs ago and although she will never forget dd time is a healer and just now she needs to take one tiny step at a time. big hugs for her though

I am so sorry to hear this Sweetkitty.

I hope someone from the hospital has thought to put her in touch with SANDS , who will be of practical assistance and kind support to her at this harrowing time.

I am not surprised she is feeling fragile, sweetkitty, but personally I worry that she is leaning on clairvoyants and it's good to know she has friends like you around.

The death of a baby is something you do gradually learn to live with, over time...but get over? I think most people would say that never happens.

I can remember the surgeon at my first c-section cursing like a trooper when he saw I had an undiagnosed low-lying placenta. He was the sort of person that at the time I thought was whingeing because it inconvenienced him. Reading what happened to your friend and her baby I think I now realised he was probably taken aback by what he found.
I really hope your friend finds the inquest of some help.

sweetkitty, that's terribly sad. How awful. How inadequate words are to express her pain.

Well I'll be thinking of you and her today and hope that she at least gets some answers. Let us know what happens if you can and, above all, try to stay strong to support her and help her deal with it all.

how awful! ... hope she will be strong for this..

Thanks it is especially hard for me as her DD would only be 7 months younger than mine and we had a little holiday planned this summer that we had to cancel. I get so angry when I see my DD doing her first that my friend will never get that chance.

Yes I am very worried she seems to go to a clairvoyant every week and it's almost as if she has not accepted her DD is not here with her. The docs sterilised her when they were doing her section though she has had it reversed. She will be trying for another baby next month and I do believe it will give her some sort of hope (she already has 2 DSs).

The sterilisation had been consented to I hope Sweetkitty?
This is such a sad story. A lot of friends in this kind of situation (with babies a similar age) do find it so hard to stay close to a bereaved mother afterwards. You have obviously been such a great friend to her when she needs it most

yes it had marina

Friend has just told me the result of the inquest was multiple organ failure and brain haemorrage as a result of hospital neglect so they have the result they wanted the hospital have admitted they caused the baby to die. Solicitor will now look to sue the hospital.

Don't know if you've heard the BBC news in Nottingham Sweetkitty, but the family have been interviewed on the radio. It's on the hourly and half hourly news.

yes unfortunately for me and my friend I live in Scotland or would have been there to support her, yes I know the story has been covered by the press.

and you said MY story was horrendous sweetkitty? your poor, poor friend.
I really hope she gets some justice for this. So very sad.