Blunders led to death of baby days after birth
ABIRMINGHAM hospital has admitted failures after a baby was born severely brain damaged and died just two days later.
Cohen Mark Joseph Cross was born after an emergency caesarian at Birmingham Women’s Hospital in Edgbaston after mother Kaleigh Elwell was admitted 35 weeks into her pregnancy due to bleeding.
He passed away just 48 hours later after suffering multi-organ failure and brain damage, caused by lack of oxygen.
The hospital later admitted failures including staff shortages and delays in identifying the emergency.
“I was reassured that I was in the best place, but obviously I wasn’t,” said Ms Elwell, from Weoley Castle.
“It’s hard to come to terms with – he should be with me now. It’s heartbreaking. He should be sitting up and smiling. It was the worse thing that I have ever gone through.”
Ms Elwell, who has three other children, was admitted to hospital early on October 1 after telephoning to say she had been bleeding.
The 29-year-old had already been identified as a high-risk patient after previous early labours with Harry, 12, Sienna, eight and Kaison, three.
She was told to go straight to the ward and was monitored over several hours.
Despite experiencing bleeding and diarrhoea, medical staff were content she was not showing signs of pre-term labour.
“By the evening I was shaking and had diarrhoea and some vomiting,” recalled Ms Elwell. “Later I had a big bleed, which I know now was a placenta abruption, and was told to get back on the bed. It took a while to find a heartbeat.
“When they finally realised it was an emergency there was a big major rush. I remember saying to the midwife ‘please save my baby’. But when he was born he was already severely brain damaged, and he wasn’t crying. He was like a sleeping baby.”
Cohen was born at 9.56pm on October 1 but despite the emergency intervention, he was found to be floppy and did not open his eyes.
Ms Elwell was informed of his poor prognosis and he died in the early hours of October 3.
An official report found that staff had struggled to locate the foetal heart rate for several hours, which should have led to emergency protocols being triggered.
Issues with a bleep system and other communication problems meant there was a delay in the ultimate decision for Ms Elwell to be transferred to delivery for an emergency C-section.
The full-time mother has since instructed lawyers at Irwin Mitchell to investigate in a bid to get to the bottom of what went wrong that day.
Ms Elwell added: “The findings of the report into his birth are incredibly hard to read and it has left us with many questions regarding whether more should have been done to prevent his death.
“I was suffering from a placental abruption but I felt that the midwives ignored my pleas for help. I believe that Cohen would be alive today if there had not been a delay.
“No mother should ever have to face what I have been through and, while nothing can change what has happened, I hope that speaking out about it may ensure that no one else faces the same ordeal in the future.”
Since the tragedy, the hospital trust said it had worked to improve training for clinical staff and were working to improve the bleep system.
A spokesperson for Birmingham Women’s Hospital said: “We recognise that there were a number of failings in the care we provided upon admission to the ward and the staff involved are devastated about what happened.
“Important lessons have been learned from this awful incident and we have already delivered enhanced training for clinical staff around better communication and timely escalation, to ensure that any concern about a mother or baby is acted on as quickly as possible.”
I was reassured that I was in the best place, but obviously I wasn’t, Kaleigh Elwell