Jennifer Cahill and her newborn daughter Agnes Lily died after a home birth that a coroner described as a ‘Victorian-age nightmare’. The 34-year-old international export manager suffered a haemorrhage and lost five pints of blood due to a tear between her vagina and anus. She went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance and died from multiple organ failure the next day. Baby Agnes was delivered not breathing with the umbilical cord around her neck and died four days later at North Manchester General Hospital.
An inquest at Rochdale Coroner’s Court heard that the deaths resulted from ‘a catastrophic error and a gross failure to provide basic medical care’. Cahill’s pregnancy was considered high-risk because she had suffered a postpartum haemorrhage after her first child in 2021. Despite this, she opted for a home birth, but the court heard that the dangers were not fully explained to her. Expert midwife Abigail Holmes stated that ‘there were no meaningful conversations’ about the risks of giving birth outside an obstetrics unit.
The inquest also revealed that community midwives Julie Turner and Andrea Walmsley had not seen the Cahills’ birth plan, and vital notes such as blood pressure readings and the baby’s heart rate were not properly recorded. One reading was scrawled on an incontinence pad that was later thrown away. Both midwives had worked 12-hour shifts before the delivery and had been awake for more than 30 hours. Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust has accepted that Cahill should have been referred to a senior midwife to discuss the risks.
