Mother left heartbroken over stillborn baby mix-up
A DEVASTATED mother has described how she mourned a baby son for five years – only to find out the child was a girl.
Stacey Lamb, 31, got a tattoo on her arm and made a memorial to her stillborn son Daniel.
At the delivery in 2011 she was told she had given birth to a boy.
But this week she asked to see her medical records and discovered her baby was a daughter.
Ms Lamb had already suffered heartbreak after being caught up in the Scottish baby ashes scandal – when crematorium staff scattered her child’s remains without her permission.
And now she has been left in shock after learning she had been grieving for a son instead of a daughter for all these years.
Ms Lamb, from Glasgow, said: “When I read the post-mortem report I thought I was seeing things.
“I expected it to say ‘male’. So when it said ‘female foetus’, I just sat and looked at it in pure shock.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, I had a baby girl! What am I meant to do now?’
“Every time I think about it I cry. I don’t know what I should do. Should I pay to get another head- stone at our family plot for my baby?”
Ms Lamb had an infection in her placenta during pregnancy and a scan revealed her baby had no heartbeat at 20 weeks.
She had to go through her labour nonetheless, delivering her stillborn child on August 24, 2011 at the Princess Royal Maternity Hospital in Glasgow.
A nurse then told her the baby was male.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which runs the Princess Royal, said: “If an early pregnancy loss is experienced, it can be difficult to determine the sex of the baby.
“Staff would typically use the term ‘your baby’ in conversations with bereaved parents, rather than refer to a boy or girl.
“We are sorry for any continued distress this lady has experienced.”