A ‘brilliant mum’ was left distraught when she woke up to find her baby daughter was ‘purple’ in her Moses basket cot. An inquest into the death of Gabriella Aitkens was held at East London Coroner’s Court on Thursday (May 15).
Coroner Nadia Persaud heard baby Faith died aged four months at her mum Rania Outoukart’s home in Romford on August 25, 2023. The inquest was told Faith ‘was perfect’ in the two days before she died, and was ‘laughing’ while at dad Solomon Aitkens’ house. But things went wrong on the night of August 24, when Faith began ‘crying in her cot’.
After comforting her daughter, Rania went to sleep, but bolted awake shortly after and ‘didn’t hear Faith cry’. Speaking at the inquest Rania said: “When I looked she was purple in her cot. I called 999 straight away.”
Rania said the call handler instructed her to begin CPR, but this led to ‘foamy blood coming out of Faith’s nose,’ which terrified Rania so she stopped the compressions. The coroner heard medical experts believe Faith would have already been dead when Rania woke up as her purple shading was thought to be from posterior hypostasis, also known as post-mortem hypostasis.
It’s the pooling of blood in the lower, or dependent, parts of the body after death, which cause a purple or red discoloration of the skin. This was concurred by Dr Ahmed Elhagar who treated Faith at Queen’s Hospital, Romford. He said Faith was ‘deceased on arrival,’ with ‘no obvious cause of death’. The toxicology report was negative, and there was no compression marks.
Faith’s maternal grandmother, who also present at the inquest, said Rania was a ‘brilliant mum’. “With god as my witness she’s been a good mum,’ she said.
Coroner Persaud ruled the cause of death as an ‘open conclusion,’ meaning there is insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion on how the death came about.
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