A FOUR day old baby suffered a cardiac arrest and died in a Dublin hospital due to a "rare but recognised" complication in a normally routine medical procedure, Dublin City Coroner's court has been told.
The infant's mother, Ms Helen Meaney, who is pregnant, wept as the coroner, Dr Brian Farrell recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.
Oisin Meaney was born in the Regional Maternity Hospital, Galway in May of last year but died four days later when an intravenous feeding tube, that had been inserted in his jugular vein, worked its way into his heart.
The child's father, Mr Senan Meaney, who lives with his wife in Co Clare, told the inquest they married in 1985 and that Ms Meaney had three miscarriages, including twins, between 1988 and 1994.
Ms Meaney discovered she was pregnant again in 1995 and their first baby, Oisin, was born by Caesarean section on May 12th, 1996.
The baby began experiencing digestion difficulties and was, brought by ambulance to Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin.
Dr Miriam Carroll, the then senior anaesthetist registrar, told Dr Farrell that the baby had arrived at the hospital in the early hours of May 13th and was diagnosed as suffering from meconium ileus, a small bowel obstruction which can sometimes signal cystic fibrosis.
She said an operation to remove the blockage was performed.
During this procedure the CVC (central venous catheter) line was inserted into the baby's right internal jugular vein and an X ray image later revealed that the tip of the tube was in the correct position.
Dr David Mannion, a consultant anaesthetist, fold the court the operation was "uneventful" and that the baby's post operative, condition was "relatively stable".
However, on May 16th at approximately 10.20 p.m. the baby began to have difficulty breathing, a condition which progressed to a cardiac arrest.
Attempts to resuscitate the infant were unsuccessful.
A pathologist, Dr Barry Kierce, who conducted the post mortem examination, told the inquest that the CVC, which served both to, feed and monitor the baby, had somehow "insinuated" its way into the baby's right atrium where "milky fluids" had been found.
He said that the fluids had come from the CVC and had prevented the heart from functioning normally, which led to the baby's death.