"I begged them to save my daughter but they didn’t"

A mother's experience of Oxford University Hospitals Maternity Services in 2025:

I lost my 29 week old little girl because no one acted quick enough when there were many signs something was going wrong with my pregnancy.

My pregnancy had been fine for the most part. It was my first ever pregnancy, we were so excited to be having a little girl. I had suffered quite badly with morning sickness in the first trimester but by the third I was able to do more and get out and about.

A week before I lost my daughter I had spotting. Despite the local midwife’s telling me it was probably nothing I went to the maternity assessment clinic. A urine sample was taken and I was told I would have an examination. They used the Doppler and found her heartbeat. I did say I wasn’t confident with her movements as she had been a little bit quiet.

They then took us to a room and strapped me in for a CGT, but my baby was hard to find. The midwife left the room for what felt like an age, a senior doctor with an ultrasound came in. Baby seemed fine and we were essentially chucked out after this. I raised the issue with discharge but was dismissed and told it was perfectly normal. We were not convinced and did not feel reassured. Especially as I did not have the examination that had been promised.

A few days later we had a private scan where higher than normal fluid was flagged. I called the assessment clinic and they said this wasn’t anything to worry about, but they would move my ultrasound up. Everything seemed fine even though discharge had ceased, but three days later everything changed.

I woke up in the night to terrible back pain, it caused me to feel dizzy and have chills. I could not stop throwing up either. We called an ambulance, again I was dismissed and told the pain was due to pelvic girdle pain. My baby’s heart rate was not checked. I luckily had a call with a silver star consultant who advised me to go to hospital.

I was sceptical I would need to go as everyone had said there was nothing to worry about especially as my baby was moving. We got to the clinic and I was still throwing up and in constant pain. I was quickly given a private room and despite being given painkillers intravenously I was still in pain.

We were left for 5 hours with little being done or investigated. Blood tests were taken but aside from that they just monitored my baby on and off using the CGT. This was very painful as I had to be on my back. My baby was moving around so much that this proved difficult. My baby didn’t normally move this much… at the 5th hour my waters broke.

When I started to panic, I was told that I had likely wet myself not broken my waters. They did an exam and it quickly confirmed my waters had broken. I started to get cramps. They finally brought a scan in and they could clearly see my baby’s heart rate had deteriorated.

I was rushed into a c section but my daughter was delivered not breathing. They managed to get her heart rate restarted but she was too ill and eventually passed away.

It’s clear there were key moments where not enough was done. It’s been assumed that I was suffering from a placental abruption if I had stayed at home like the ambulance crew advised I would have died.

The care at the maternity assessment clinic is not joined up, the report my consultant wrote did not seem to be considered and the hours of waiting for something to be done is what caused such a disastrous outcome.

Me and my husband have been left devastated by this loss all our plans have been ruined. A pram we will never get to use a cot we’ve had to send back. I’m physically broken too having a c section and no baby is a lot to cope with and now I have risks for future pregnancies I never had to consider before.

Everyday I wake up and can’t believe this is my reality.

OUH failed me, when I was on the table about to have my c section I begged them to save my daughter but they didn’t. I had no idea I was in danger until it was too late.