Hospital Admits to Negligence After Baby Dies Because of a Midwife’s Mistake

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When you’re in labor and on the way to the hospital, there’s a good chance that you’ll say a  prayer in hopes that nothing will go wrong.

Being in labor is probably the most exciting and terrifying experience of your life. You’re about to give birth to a little human being and your only hope is that everything will go just as planned.

As you can imagine though, that’s not always the case.

A family is devastated after a midwife made a regrettable mistake that she’s probably going to hold close to her heart for the rest of her life.

It’s the kind of pain that You wouldn’t even wish on your worst enemy. This baby’s life was taken away because of human error.

This story is truly heartbreaking and According to reports, a hospital admitted negligence after staff mistakenly monitored a mother’s heart rate instead of her baby’s.

The baby, Sadie Pye, from England was starved of oxygen at birth and died hours later.

Her mother, Danielle Johnston, 31, had her labor induced at the Royal Bolton hospital in June of 2011 after developing gestational diabetes when she was 8 months pregnant.

She said that her midwives noticed the baby’s heart rate shot up after her waters were broken, but said that it went back to normal about 30 minutes later.

Danielle said to local reporters, “A doctor came in to see me and said he would come back to check on Sadie’s heart rate but left me with the trainee midwife. He didn’t come back. I was in lots of pain so had an epidural but I kept going in and out of consciousness. It was weird and I knew something wasn’t right. A midwife noticed this and seemed to panic. She was looking at the CTG monitor (to monitor the baby’s heartbeat) and expressed concern.”

But this is the worst part: Bolton Hospital NHS Foundation Trust admitted the care given to the mother and baby was negligent and settled a legal case brought by the family for an undisclosed sum.

They said in a statement: “We are deeply sorry for the circumstances that led to the sad death of Ms Johnston’s daughter, Sadie. The trust carried out a full review into the care that Ms Johnston and her daughter received whilst they were patients at the hospital, and actions were identified and taken to minimize the risk of an incident of this nature happening again. We once again extend our apologies to the family for their loss.”

This story has gotten plenty of comments online from concerned parents who have written:

Midwives are only human and sometimes errors occur, this midwife is probably going through hell due to her mistake. No one would do this deliberately.

How could they not have noticed? A normal unborn baby’s heart rate is 140-160 beats per minute. A typical adults rate would need immediate surgery because it would be considered low. Are the medical staff purchasing fake qualifications from abroad. How could they not know the difference?

But, personally, I think the nurses/doctors who were on shift and responsible for looking after this mother and baby should be charged with some form of manslaughter.

It’s truly distressing to think thousands of woman have lost their child due to human error…