Abbie Holland was pregnant with her first child, but after she went into preterm labour, she labelled her care at the hospital ‘absolutely disgusting’ and said, ‘There was no reason she would have died in the womb’
A mum has claimed her stillborn daughter might still be alive if hospital staff had listened to her desperate pleas.
Abbie Holland’s first pregnancy at the age of 20 had been “going well”; she had no morning sickness, there were no complications, and she had just found out she was having a girl. But at 23 weeks and five days, she worryingly went into preterm labour with her daughter.
“I was terrified”, Abbie, a hairdresser from Kent, told the Mirror. “I was experiencing pain, but didn’t really think it was labour. I woke up to intense pain and my waters ‘popping’. I never knew anything about preterm labour or the statistics of my daughter being born alive.”
On the way to Medway Maritime Hospital, her local centre, Abbie recalled: “I just kept praying my baby would be okay.” She was then transferred to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, as she said this was the closest facility with a NICU cot suitable for a 23-week baby.
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However, when she got there, Abbie was hit with some heartshattering news. “I was told by a specialist, ‘The chances of a scrap like this surviving was minimal’, and that they would not intervene despite my will for them to help.”
Reflecting back on this, Abbie shared: “I was heartbroken. One to hear the small chance, and two hearing my baby referred to as something almost inhumane. There was no empathy or professionalism.
“This was the first time I was told that my baby might not make it. I had been told at the previous hospital that her survival rate if born alive would be low, but that they would be transferring me to give her the best possible chance and me the best possible outcome for the labour.”
Recalling her horrific ordeal at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital hospital, Abbie claimed: “I was put into a side room where I began haemorrhaging from a placental abruption. I was left for over 12 hours without any nurse checks, midwife checks or labour progression checks.
“I was in an awful lot of pain with contractions. I started bleeding heavily, and multiple times my mum went to get a nurse, and we were just told it was normal (we now know it wasn’t).
“They kept insisting they would not do anything as they wanted to try and keep the baby in. Even when I began bleeding, they refused to do anything and did not check her heartbeat at any point during the 12 hours.
“After a third lot of passing, a massive amount of blood made me feel poorly, and at one point, I passed out. My mum went and found a student midwife who came in and tried to find a heartbeat, but couldn’t.”
The heartbroken mum continued: “I was then moved to a delivery room where I was checked, and they said my baby was already trying to pass through (she was breech). They then did a scan, which confirmed there was no heartbeat, despite it being there and strong during my transfer.
“I was then told I needed to deliver my daughter. There was no time to process what had happened.” Abbie’s daughter was tragically born stillborn in August 2008.
After giving birth to her daughter, Abbie says she had to endure a heartwrenching walk past other mums and their new babies, carrying her daughter, while also “being covered in blood from the haemorrhaging.”
She said: “They told me they would move me back off the delivery ward to a private room where I could spend time with my baby. I was asked to walk to the room, and I carried my daughter. I had my nightie on and my stockings on, but they were all covered in blood.
“I walked along the corridor, and there was a lady being wheeled past me holding her newborn baby. There were other new mums in the side rooms with their babies sitting on their beds, just watching me walk past.”
Following the tragic loss of her daughter, Abbie was dealt with more distress. “My midwife rang me two days later asking why I had missed my 24-week check, and I was disgusted she had not been informed of my baby’s death by the hospital and come out to visit me.”
This encounter led to a conversation with the community midwife about her treatment during her preterm labour. Abbie explained: “I talked her through everything that happened, and she told me none of what happened was normal and encouraged me to pursue legal action for negligence. Each time a nurse came into the room after I passed blood, they kept saying it was normal and ‘old blood’.
“My community midwife looked at all my notes and said how my daughter was a very good size for her gestation and had she been born alive, she would have had a chance to live.
“She didn’t say she definitely would have lived, but she said she would have stood a chance. She told me that the baby wouldn’t have stood a chance once the bleeding started, and when the placenta abruption happened, as it would have starved the baby of oxygen at that point.
“She said generally this would have been the point they should have tried to deliver the baby, as not doing so caused her death.”
Abbie, now 37, shared: “I had a post-mortem done on Angel (her daughter). There were no genetic defects, no abnormalities, no issues with the placenta. There was no reason she would have died in the womb.”
She added: “My mum carries Factor V Leiden, and this is hereditary. After being tested, I was also found to be a carrier of the mutation and therefore, I was put on blood thinners as a precaution. It was later confirmed by haematology that this could have been the reason for the abruption and the pre-term labour.”
Despite this, Abbie summed up her care at the hospital as “absolutely disgusting”. She said: “I remember being scared but believing the staff were doing everything they should. I was very naive, being only 20 and my first baby.
“Their lack of care and empathy mentally scarred me and caused my otherwise healthy daughter to die before delivery. Had they actually helped and let me deliver my daughter before the abruption, she would have been born alive and could have stood a chance.”
On what she needed at the time, Abbie explained: “There could have been more care and empathy for my situation. They could have explained things to me more, and still given me that respect as a patient that I wasn’t given. It was so hard to even get a nurse to come in and check on me. I was offered no pain relief during 23 hours of labour. I was treated so inhumanely.”
After the experience, Abbie said she made a complaint with Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and received a full apology from the staff involved. “They apologised for referring to my baby as a scrap and asked if I would be happy for them to use my experience in teaching so that they can prevent it from ever happening again,” she said.
On grieving for her daughter, Abbie shared: “I didn’t have much support. I went back to going out with my friends and found out I was pregnant just a few months later.”
A spokesperson for Chelsea and Westminster Hospital said: “We extend our sincere condolences to Ms Holland for the tragic loss of her daughter. We remain committed to learning from all patient experiences and have since taken steps to improve our maternity care.”
If you need support following the loss of a baby or young child, you can visit https://www.lullabytrust.org.uk/bereavement-support/ or call their bereavement support helpline: 0808 802 6868
