Newborn baby girl dies at just one day old after medical staff failings
- 03.10.2017
- EmmaArnold
- Clinical-negligence, Clinical-negligence, Clinical-negligence, Clinical-negligence
A Manchester hospital has apologised after a one-day-old baby girl died under their care.
Baby Niamh passed away after being delivered at North Manchester General Hospital when her mother's labour was not properly managed.
An Inquest heard how the likely cause of Niamh's death was multiple organ failure due to antenatal hypoxic-ischemia which is a type of brain damage caused by lack of oxygen.
Niamh's mother, Jane Casey, attended the hospital after her waters broke four days after her due date but she was sent home to wait for her labour to progress.
The following day, Jane returned to the maternity unit and was taken to the labour ward. However, she noticed a deceleration on the CTG monitor and pressed a buzzer to alert staff.
Baby Niamh was born later on that evening and was taken away from her mother to be given oxygen before she was transferred to another hospital.
Niamh's parents were told their baby had suffered considerable oxygen deprivation and so was likely to be severely brain damaged. They made the heartbreaking decisions for Niamh not to be put on any machines and she died that day.
Hannah Bottomley, clinical negligence solicitor at Potter Rees Dolan, said:
This tragic story demonstrates the importance of mothers receiving proper care and attention. Here at Potter Rees Dolan we represent families who have lost children as a result of failings surrounding labour and delivery and it is always difficult for them to hear that their child’s life could have been saved with appropriate intervention.
It is a positive step that the Trust have admitted the failures and provided an apology to the family but these events are still too common and I believe more still needs to be done to prevent such tragic and avoidable deaths in the future.
Our clinical negligence team specialise in birth injury compensation claims for medical mismanagement at birth including neonatal death like this sad case.
Read about how we acted for a mother after one of her twins died during delivery and how we were successful in obtaining compensation of over £2 million for the parents of a brain injured baby for his care and support.
You can read about other case studies involved birth injuries on our dedicated clinical negligence case studies page.
Hannah Bottomley is a clinical negligence solicitor here at Potter Rees Dolan. Should you have any queries about clinical negligence issues or indeed any other aspect of this article and wish to speak to Hannah or any other member of the team please contact us on 0161 237 5888 or email Hannah directly.