AN INQUEST into the death of a newborn baby in Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry two years ago was told yesterday that Charlie Hugo Meenan could have survived if an immediate Caesarean section operation had been carried out.
Instead, labour was allowed to continue for nine hours.
The inquest is the first of four into a cluster of deaths in Altnagelvin Hospital during July and August 2006.
Senior coroner John L Leckey said at the start of the hearing that he had commissioned three reports into the deaths of the babies, all of whom died from neo-natal encephalopathy, which is inflammation of the brain.
The author of one of the reports, regional paediatric pathologist Dr Claire Garnon, said that Charlie had lost a massive amount of blood from his circulation into his mother’s circulation.
She said the blood loss was 150ml of his total blood volume of almost 300ml.
“The baby was likely to have been shocked and anaemic as the result of the maternal foetal haemorrhage. We would rarely see such a level of haemorrhage,” she said.
Dr Garnon said the haemorrhaging was probably caused by bacteria in the birth canal, which in turn caused inflammation of the umbilical cord. She said the cause of death was a massive foetal maternal internal haemorrhage, caused by leaking placenta.
Queen’s University academic Professor William Thompson, who is also the author of a report into the deaths, said an electronic monitoring of the foetal heart resulted in an “unusual pathological trace”.
That, he said, should have resulted in an immediate Caesarean section within half an hour.
“If delivery by Caesarean section had been performed, the already compromised foetus would not have been subjected to hypoxia.
“If an immediate Caesarean section had been performed, it might have resulted in a more favourable outcome, but it would have required very good neo-natal care for the baby to have survived,” he said.
“The midwives did everything correctly in assessing the foetal wellbeing, but the interpretation of the foetal trace monitoring was the problem,” he added.
Dr Neil Corrigan, a consultant paediatrician at Altnagelvin Hospital, said after the baby was born the “prognosis was extremely dire” and the baby would probably have suffered brain damage in the unlikely event of survival. He said the baby showed “no respiratory effort” and remained critically ill for several hours.
“Charlie was given to his mother for skin-to-skin nursing to allow time with his family prior to the withdrawal of treatment. There was no respiratory response,” he said.
The inquest was adjourned until next Monday.