1 week Ago By [email protected] (Katie Westwood)
WARNING: CONTAINS DISTRESSING DETAILS - Two city hospitals have promised to learn lessons from the case of a young mum who lost her baby in harrowing circumstances Alder Hey and Liverpool Women's Hospital have said lessons will be learned as details emerged of a distressing case in which a teenage mum lost her baby daughter after falling seriously ill. Sophie Jones* was just 14 years old when she found out she was pregnant with a baby girl. Speaking to the ECHO , her mum Louise* said: "It was a massive shock to us all.
But both families did a lot of talking together and we agreed to go ahead with it." Because of her age, Sophie received special care and monitoring while she was pregnant. She was placed under an enhanced midwife team, and social services investigated the circumstances of her pregnancy.
According to Louise, the social services team "assessed everything", then closed the case. "Sophie was planning to continue going to school, and I was going to look after the baby," explained Louise. "Everything was fine - we accepted it.
We were ready for the baby's arrival - we'd bought everything she needed." Sophie's condition rapidly deteriorates Louise claims her daughter had a scan when she was 27 weeks pregnant which showed her organs were functioning normally and the baby was healthy. But in April 2023, just a week after these scans were performed, Sophie became seriously ill.
"I knew something wasn't right with her," said Louise. "She was vomiting and couldn't keep anything down. She'd had a fever the night before, so I called the Liverpool Women's Hospital about it.
" Liverpool Women's advised Louise to take Sophie straight to A&E. After being refused by a nearby hospital because of her age, she was admitted to Alder Hey for specialist paediatric care on April 7. At Alder Hey, medics tested Sophie's urine and carried out a scan on her kidney.
They discovered she had a urine infection that had gone into her kidney. She needed to undergo a nephrology operation. According to Louise, although the operation was described to her as a "standard procedure under normal circumstances" it was "not a common procedure to carry out during pregnancy".
Medics decided she should remain at the children's hospital, where she could receive treatment from acute paediatric care specialists. Throughout the day, maternal health experts from Liverpool Women's provided advice over the phone to medics caring for Sophie at Alder Hey. On April 8, her condition rapidly deteriorated and she was taken into theatre for emergency surgery on her kidney.
Prior to surgery, a midwife from Liverpool Women's came to assess her. According to Louise, the midwife said the baby was healthy and that her heartbeat was normal. But the operation on Sophie's kidney did not go as planned.
During the procedure, her kidney burst open, and the surgeon detected signs of sepsis. At this point, it was touch and go whether Sophie would survive. She was taken to ICU, where she would remain in an induced coma for several days.
Louise was told her daughter's organs were shutting down. 'She just cried and cried' Throughout the ordeal, Louise was out of her mind with worry - not only for Sophie, but also for her unborn granddaughter. On the morning of April 9, she received the devastating news that doctors could no longer detect the a heartbeat and the baby had died in utero.
But the family's trauma didn't end there. In her unconscious state, Sophie had gone into advanced labour, and it was too late for a caesarean to be performed to deliver the baby, so she would have to give birth while unconscious. Louise told the the ECHO : "I didn't think it was possible - I didn't understand how she could deliver naturally when she was sedated.
I had to witness my granddaughter being pushed and pulled from my unconscious little girl." When the baby - whose name was Rose* - was born, the delivery team passed her straight to Louise. She weighed just 2lb 8oz.
"I put her straight on Sophie's chest, so she had first contact with her," said Louise. Three days later, medics began the process of waking Sophie from her induced coma. "She slowly started waking up," said Louise.
"She put her hand to her stomach and said, 'mum where's my baby?' and I had to tell her about Rose. It had to come from me - but I couldn't understand it myself. She just cried and cried.
" Sophie spent the following two weeks in hospital, and her education was badly affected as she tried to recover from what happened to her and her baby. According to Louise, she has "good days and bad", but is "doing better" than before. She is currently studying for her GCSEs.
'No single optimal location' for mums like Sophie Sophie's case raises serious concerns about where young, acutely ill expectant mums can expect to receive care in Merseyside. The family can't just forget what happened, and are demanding answers from the NHS about the care delivered to Sophie and her baby. Louise claims that Sophie was "completely let down due to her age".
Louise and Sophie are desperate to keep Rose's memory alive and to let people know her story. "We can’t accept what’s happened," said Louise. "Things need to change so that no other family has to go through what we’re going through.
" The ECHO understands that in the hours after she was admitted to Alder Hey, the question of where to care for Sophie and her unborn baby was repeatedly discussed. According to hospitals involved, the complexity of her case - her tender age, combined with her pregnancy and her acute medical condition - meant there was no ideal place for her to be treated. However, Louise feels that if her daughter had been admitted to Liverpool Women's Hospital, the outcome for Rose might have been different.
She is particularly aggrieved about the the decision to delay performing a caesarean on Sophie. She says she has spoken to an independent expert who claims that had Sophie received specialist maternity care and a caesarean been performed, the baby might have survived. The ECHO understands multiple specialists from both hospitals were involved in the decision to keep Sophie at Alder Hey.
Liverpool Women's Hospital does not have an adult intensive care unit, and we understand this was a key reason why medics decided to keep Sophie at Alder Hey rather than transfer her to Liverpool Women's. In a joint statement, Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust and Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust said: "We understand and appreciate the distress that these events caused to those concerned. "The safety of those we care for is always our top priority.
Sometimes in very complex cases this care needs to be provided by multiple organisations and specialist teams. "As acute and specialist services are provided across multiple hospitals in the city, there is no single optimal location for providing maternity care to young people under 16, particularly those with significant additional clinical needs, due to the specialist expertise required. "We will take lessons from this case and will continue to work together and with other partners across the region to improve the care we provide.
" For help and information on birth trauma, visit the Birth Trauma Association website . *Some names have been changed to protect the identities of the people involved in this story.
