A hospital has admitted responsibility for the tragic death of a baby after medics missed a critical sign of a birth complication known to increase the risk of still birth.
Taylor Hough-Barnes, 26, went to her local hospital, The Royal Bolton Hospital, in July 2023 at 36 weeks pregnant after a day of consistent bleeding.
But doctors dismissed the symptom as a normal early sign of labour.
The following day Ms Barnes’ waters broke, and soon afterwards she could no longer feel her baby Myla moving.
Hours later doctors discovered that the baby had died, resulting in a devastating stillbirth.
The Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has now said admitted it should have kept Mr Hough-Barnes in for monitoring when she first presented to the hospital suffering symptoms.
If this had happened, Myla’s death may have been prevented.
In a hearing about her case, hospital bosses acknowledged that her pregnancy was high-risk, as the births of her two older children had involved serious complications.
Taylor and her partner McCauley Sleigh say that words alone are not enough to explain the pain of losing their third child and no parents should have to go through what they have
The mother-of-two said her children ‘always talk’ about their baby sister, and they found it difficult to understand why she never came home.
‘It’s awful to think the people we trusted with our lives have broken that trust. I also feel anger and guilt that I didn’t demand to be admitted and refuse to go home,’ she said.
‘By raising awareness, we hope to change how mothers are treated and ensure they are not made to feel stupid for having concerns during pregnancy.
‘We have to be strong for our other children, but no parent should ever have to say goodbye to their child, it is the most soul-destroying feeling.’
It comes after a 2023 report from health watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found that The Royal Bolton Hospital’s maternity ward requires improvement.
The body concluded that staff did not manage safety incidents well, and that there was a backlog of incidents.
There were 329 ‘red flag’ incidents at the hospital between November 2022 and March 2023, according to the CQC.
At The Royal Bolton Hospital, 86 per cent of ‘red flag’ cases related to a delay in admission when patients were showing signs of being in labour.
The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) suggests staff shortages and lack of funding is to blame for stopping midwives from delivering high-quality services.
Taylor, who lives in Bolton with McCauley and their other children Alaiyah, four, and Cauley, three say her children are always asking where their sibling is.
The mum from Bolton said: ‘We have to be strong for our other children, but no parent should ever have to say goodbye to their child, it is the most soul-destroying feeling
In September, the CQC found two-thirds of services either ‘require improvement’ or are ‘inadequate’ for safety.
It also comes as another report into the ‘postcode lottery’ of NHS maternity care last May also ruled good care is ‘the exception rather than the rule’.
The inquiry gathered harrowing evidence from more than 1,300 women — some on whom said they were left in blood-soaked sheets and told of children suffering life-changing injuries due to medical negligence.
The report estimated that that 30,000 women a year have suffered negative experiences during the delivery of their babies. One-in-20 develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The state of NHS maternity care has previously been branded a ‘national tragedy’ by MPs.
Madeleine Langmead, a specialist medical negligence solicitor at JMW who handled the families case, said: ‘Myla’s death was not only tragic, but completely preventable.
‘Taylor’s two other children had been born prematurely by emergency caesarean section so when she felt contractions and had blood loss, she correctly attended the hospital.
‘There was a high risk that her pregnancy with Myla would result in another premature birth, and this should have been identified by the doctor who assessed her and she should have been kept in.
‘The consequences of this poor care were completely devastating, and lessons must be learned so that it is never repeated.’
