Mum’s grief: Medics left 22 week pre-term baby to die

Mum’s grief: Medics left 22 week pre-term baby to die | News | The Christian Institute: Tracy Godwin gave birth to her son Tom on 6 March last year when she was in the 22nd week of her pregnancy. But the 31-year-old was left aghast when medics at Southend University NHS Hospital refused to help her son. She had not been told that the hospital does not intervene with babies born under 23 weeks.

Describing the experience she said: “They put him in my arms and he cried and was wriggling around. I could feel him breathing and see his eyelashes and fingers and toes. But I kept thinking, ‘Where’s the incubator?’ We were begging the midwives to do something to help him but no one was saying anything. He was not stillborn, he was trying to live. If they had tried for an hour and said they couldn’t do anything more for him or he was severely brain damaged, that would have been different, but he wasn’t given a chance.”