Couple supports Banbury maternity campaign after horrific loss of baby daughter

Mum Alice Topping is ‘filled with rage’ at the neglect preventing the safe delivery of baby Smokey. She believes the JR maternity unit is too large and says doctors are ‘arrogant and too focused on their own research’ to implement initiatives that save lives.

"They took our daughter's entire life away and completely destroyed me and my partner when they could have easily prevented it,” said Ms Topping. Ms Topping recounted her tragic story to Keep the Horton General campaign group for the second volume of its Birth Trauma Dossier. The first volume was published in June, featuring 50 cases of unacceptable care at the Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) Maternity Unit in Oxford.

The publication is part of a campaign to return full maternity to the Horton, Banbury. The unit was downgraded to a midwife-only service in 2016.

Ms Topping said: “The unit is too big for safe care. It's dangerous for women to travel so far in labour or when there's a problem. Having an obstetric unit in Banbury is a good idea, but the issues run more deeply than that. The JR seems to like experimenting with new systems that aren't safe and go against national guidelines.

“My daughter Smokey died a totally preventable death in labour last year. I've never experienced such horrific 'care'.

"I am having trauma therapy. My partner, Pedro Jacob, was turned away when he sought therapy for PTSD. He witnessed everything. He's now on a seven-month waiting list.”

Ms Topping takes exception to the ‘Oxford growth restriction identification pathway’ (OXGRIP) using set scanning pathways instead of scanning mothers when needed.

"It was designed to reduce 'ad hoc' and 'unnecessary scans' and ironically to reduce the incidence of growth restriction and stillbirth. They have an unwritten policy most of their midwives don't know about, to not give scans after 40 weeks,” she said.

"Everyone was on OXGRIP from 20 weeks. I was screened and deemed highest risk of preeclampsia, growth restriction and stillbirth. But I still got all three because they refused me scans - after my daughter was term and could have been born perfectly healthily.

“I've been told there's a group of powerful obstetricians there with no interest in national guidelines. There are systemic problems in not listening to women.”

Ms Topping said she was offered induction too late and was advised ‘horrifically badly’. She should have been admitted when her blood pressure was very high but was not; they failed to send an important test for protein and did not monitor her properly for gestational hypertension.

"My midwives were newly qualified and swapped each month between delivery suite and community so they had no clue what was going on,” she said.

The unit failed to scan her when her bump height dropped – against guidelines - failed to bring her induction forwards and failed to listen to her anxieties or her entreaties (once 44 times in one day) to be scanned.

A midwife told Ms Topping the consultant maintained scans were ‘not accurate’ and she ‘would not benefit’.

They failed to listen to her sister’s – a midwife – serious concerns about her care. Finally she was told to stay at home when she went into labour, when she should have been admitted immediately. When they were admitted Ms Topping and Mr Jacob were told their baby had died.

"So many mistakes had to happen for my daughter to die. It's hard to even accept them as mistakes when my sister and I were telling them what they were doing was wrong.

"Our previously happy lives are filled with only suffering and pain now. They've taken away our hope, joy, happiness, our mental and physical health, our home, our sense of safety, trust, confidence, our careers, our peace, friendships, relationships with family.

"We’ve lost the joy of watching our daughter grow up, smiling and laughing with her, hearing her voice, seeing the colour of her eyes, playing with her, teaching her to swim, watching her go to school, seeing her ride a bike, watching her play with her cousins.

"We lost every birthday, every Christmas. What they took away from her is unspeakable, she never even got to meet her family. There will be no end to what we are mourning, it is monumental and incomprehensible.

"That it was preventable with basic care is just evil and completely unacceptable.

“We went from the happiest in our lives to preferring to be dead than endure this suffering. Our daughter lost her life and we have been given a life sentence of agony because they couldn't spare 20 minutes for a scan or five minutes for a call to make a plan with us. It's despicable and inhuman.”

Ms Topping was not told until after Smokey was stillborn of the increased risk of stillbirth associated with a problem with one of her uterine arteries discovered at 20 weeks, in spite of her asking. It risked the baby’s growth and dangerous pre-eclampsia in her.

“I was booked for scans monthly, until they stopped at 36 weeks,” she said. “I became even higher risk but my scans and doctors’ appointments stopped as that's how their experimental pathway worked. Anywhere else I would have got extra scans, as per national guidelines.”

A midwife dismissed signs that the baby was not growing but did send her for an urgent scan. But it was refused because ‘scans at this stage are not accurate’.

Vital signals were missed and still Ms Topping was refused scans. Even when the baby’s heartbeat could not be heard, she was still not sent to hospital.

"In the days before our daughter died I was increasingly terrified of putting myself and my baby in the hands of a hospital that doesn't listen to women or its own midwives and doesn't follow national guidelines. They lied about why they wouldn't scan me and delayed us for so long they prevented us saving Smokey. In any other hospital it is as near certain as it can be she would be alive today.

"Since Smokey died we've continued to be treated like (dirt) by the hospital. They filled out her death certificate incorrectly so we had to delay Smokey's funeral. They said she died before labour which we knew was untrue as she was moving fine before labour. But if babies die before labour there's no external investigation.

"The clinical director said 'the scan wouldn't have made a difference'. Experts outside the OUH have disagreed. She also said Smokey was a 'normal weight' which wasn't true as she'd gone from the 30th centile at 36 weeks to the 9th centile at birth according to the Post Mortem.

“Their joke of an internal investigation said they'd done nothing wrong, they'd managed growth concerns appropriately. We had a meeting with a new consultant who admitted 'we totally failed you'.

"I have been supported by the Failed Families of the OUH Maternity Services Facebook page and recommend other mothers join the group.”

An external investigation is being conducted by the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigators.

Yvonne Christley, OUH Chief Nursing Officer said: “Losing a baby is a devastating experience for any family, and our heartfelt condolences go out to Alice and her family and anyone who has experienced such a loss.

“We recognise this is a very difficult time for the family. However, we are unable to comment on an ongoing investigation.”