Midwives’ mistakes ‘causing stillbirths’

BABIES are dying needlessly because midwives are failing to properly monitor their heartbeats, experts have warned.

Up to three-quarters of infants who were either stillborn or suffered serious brain damage could have been healthy with more thorough checks.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists today calls for new measures to be introduced to wards to improve the care of mothers and newborns.

Suggestions include more checks of the baby’s heartbeat during labour and senior doctors supervising complex births.

Two months ago Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt launched a major investigation into a cluster of needless baby deaths at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital in Shropshire, in which up to nine babies died under suspicious circumstances at the trust between September 2014 and May 2016. In sev- eral cases, staff failed to properly read or interpret the babies’ heart rate during the labour, which gives a crucial indication of whether they are stressed.

Today’s report warns that similar mistakes are occurring in other maternity units across Britain, where approximately one in every 200 labours results in a stillbirth.

Professor Lesley Regan, RCOG president, said: ‘It is a profound tragedy whenever a death, disability or illness of a baby results from incidents during labour.

‘The emotional cost to each family is incalculable and we owe it to them to properly investigate what happened and ensure the individuals and the healthcare trusts involved take the steps needed to avoid making the same mistakes again.’