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27
Apr 2021
Knaresborough couple campaign for 'Matilda's Law' after death of baby daughter
A Knaresborough couple are campaigning for changes to maternity services after 'avoidable delays' in delivery led to their baby daughter's death.
Whitney Pickup went into labour at Harrogate District Hospital on July 2, 2018.
She was advised by doctors to proceed with a natural delivery even though her first child was delivered via emergency caesarean section at another hospital.
Following an unsuccessful forceps delivery, her daughter Matilda was born by caesarean section with severe brain damage.
Matilda was admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary before being transferred to Martin House Hospice, where she died at nine days old.
Ms Pickup, 33, and husband Andy, 35, subsequently instructed medical negligence lawyers at Irwin Mitchell to investigate the care provided by Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust.
An investigation, carried out by the trust, found “there were avoidable delays in achieving the delivery of Matilda which caused or materially contributed to her sad death”.
Among the problems identified by a subsequent Root Cause Analysis Report was a failure to obtain previous maternity and delivery notes, which would have alerted doctors to the risks involved as well as avoidable delays in the operating theatre and communication issues.
The couple are now campaigning for Matilda’s Law to make it mandatory for hospital trusts to share antenatal, maternity and labour records if the mother is under the care of a different trust in future pregnancies.
Ms Pickup, who is also mother to Charlie, five, and Isaac, one, believes her daughter's death could have been avoided if the hospital had requested her medical records. She said:
An inquest into Matilda's death, which is expected to last for four days, started in Harrogate yesterday.
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Victoria Moss, the specialist medical negligence lawyer representing the couple, said:
A spokesman for Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust said it would comment after the inquest.
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