Mum calls for more to be done to reduce stillbirths
A Maidstone mum who gave birth to a stillborn baby girl is campaigning for life-saving scans and measures to be rolled out for pregnant women across the country.
Sophie Kirk was born sleeping at Tunbridge Wells Hospital on March 11, 2016 at 2.09pm, weighing 3lb 2oz, after tragically passing away in her mother Maria’s womb after 35 weeks.
She was one of 3,000 babies stillborn every year in the UK, but campaigners like Ms Kirk believe at least half of these are preventable.
To that end, she has been calling on the government to offer all pregnant women Doppler scans, which measure the blood flow between the placenta and foetus, and a growth assessment protocol (GAP), which gives each mother a customised chart to track their baby’s growth.
Little Sophie would have likely been saved by either, according to her mother.
“She was a perfectly healthy little girl born without breath,” she said.
“I had attended Tunbridge Wells hospital a few times due to concerns over Sophie’s movements, but each time she appeared to be okay, until she wasn’t.
“The post-mortem showed that Sophie died from placental insufficiency, which if detected when I exhibited reduced movement she would have been delivered and would be here with us today.”
Since her daughter’s death Ms Kirk has set up a blog and support group called Sophie’s Angels and has also launched a petition asking for the scans and GAP to be offered to all pregnant women as part of their antenatal care, which has received more than 3,000 signatures.
The government announced a new maternity strategy in November to reduce the number of stillbirths, which would see hundreds of cases referred to the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, the new NHS safety investigator.
Health bosses claim it will standardise investigations of cases so that the NHS learns as quickly as possible from what went wrong and shares the learning to prevent future tragedies.
To sign the petition visit tinyurl.com/KMsophie