Newborn Baby Starved For Oxygen As Consultant Couldn't Find Her Glasses

A critically ill newborn child starved of oxygen for several minutes at birth after her consultant couldn't find her glasses, a court was informed.

An inquest held at a U.K. Court heard Wednesday how Finnley Morris died four days after his birth due to the lack of oxygen into his brain at a Blackpool hospital in October 2020, reported Lancs Live.

Finnley's mother Emma went to hospital five days past her due date when doctors decided to induce her. She had already contacted the hospital two days earlier because she felt the baby wasn't moving like he used to.

Though the child was delivered that night, doctors quickly realized something was wrong when he failed to cry and "looked as though he was struggling to take a breath."

The court was told that Finnley struggled for oxygen for 42 minutes due to several delays before he was finally intubated. However, he suffered irreparable brain damage and died four days later. A postmortem concluded that Finnley's death was caused by severe hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, where the nerve cells in the brain die as a result of a lack of blood supply and oxygen.

During the inquest, midwife Marie-Laure Longy told the court that the initial ventilation breaths given to the baby were not proper.

"If after the first five breaths you don't see any movement of the chest wall, you have to consider if the baby's head is not in the right position or that the seal of the mask is not fitted correctly," Longy said. However, Finnley's head position was changed, following which the breaths began to enter his lungs.

Another delay happened when the medics realized a clamp was missing. It took half a minute to find a new clamp to secure the resuscitation equipment. The court was then told that the ultraviolet lamp above Finnley "had never been turned on" although Midwife Longy claimed it had been.

Another nurse, Hayley Knighton, arrived in the operating room nine minutes after Finnley was delivered and noticed the pressure reading on the Resuscitaire machine was below what it should be.

The court was then told that the on-call consultant, Dr. Sunitha Peiris, arrived at the hospital around 30 minutes after Finnley was born. She then asked the doctors why he hadn't already been intubated.

However, it took a further 12 minutes to get Finnley intubated because Dr. Peiris couldn't find her reading glasses. Several minutes were wasted as Finnley remained "white and motionless," the court was told.

"There was a discussion about trying to source some glasses for her. I don't think anyone had any spare glasses," the court heard. The inquest is ongoing and is scheduled to last for four days.