Inquest Details Tragic Home Birth Where Midwife Placed 'Blue and Floppy' Newborn on Mother
A midwife placed a 'blue and floppy' newborn on her mother's chest and said 'there's your baby' after midwives encouraged her to deliver her child at home, a coroner's inquest has heard in distressing detail. Poppy Hope Lomas died aged just seven days old after being rushed to hospital following severe complications during a planned home delivery with the Edgware Midwives home birth team.
Failure to Explain Risks in VBAC Home Birth
Barnet Coroner's Court was told that Gemma Lomas was not properly consulted about the risks surrounding the natural delivery of her second child, having delivered her first daughter Willow via caesarean section. The inquest heard that Alice Boardman, who was head midwife at Edgware Midwives, had encouraged a vaginal birth after caesarean (VBAC) at home but failed to explain the potential dangers.
In a witness statement read out by her lawyer Teresa Hargreaves, Ms Lomas described the moment: 'The midwife placed Poppy on my chest and said, "There's your baby". Poppy was blue and floppy. There was blood coming out of her mouth and her head fell back. That's a horrific memory that sticks in my mind, being handed my dead baby.'
She added: 'I said "there's something wrong" but the midwives moved very slowly, there was no sense of urgency.'
Guidelines Ignored and Critical Delays
According to guidance from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), VBAC deliveries should take place in a 'suitably staffed and equipped delivery suite' and 'with resources available for immediate caesarean delivery'. However, the inquest revealed this was not followed.
Doctors from University College Hospital in London later discovered the baby girl had been 'starved of oxygen' for 'around seven to eight minutes'. After Poppy's brain was scanned, Dr Giles Kendall, a consultant neonatologist, described the scan as 'one of the worst that he'd seen in his career', according to Ms Lomas's statement.
Ms Lomas expressed confusion: 'I still don't understand how she was without oxygen for so long when the midwives were supposedly monitoring her heart rate.'
Pain Complaints Dismissed and Trauma Compounded
The inquest, led by senior coroner Andrew Walker, also heard that midwives dismissed Ms Lomas's complaints of pain from her previous C-section scar, including Ms Boardman. Ms Lomas recalled: 'I complained my scar was hurting. It was tight and was starting to really hurt. It felt like it was stretching rather than ripping.'
RCOG guidance states practitioners should be cautious managing deliveries involving uterine scars, as there is a one in 200 risk of uterine rupture. Ms Lomas said losing Poppy was even harder to deal with as the baby had been healthy during pregnancy.
She explained: 'She was perfectly fine inside me. She had no defects or problems. It was just those final moments of her birth. That makes her loss even harder to deal with. The fact that it all happened in our home, a place where we should feel safe, has also made the trauma so much worse.'
Organizational Context and Aftermath
Edgware Midwives is the designated home birth team at Barnet Hospital, which is part of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. Poppy was rushed to hospital after the midwives told Mr Lomas to ring 999, but the delay proved fatal. The baby died aged seven days old when her breathing tube was removed, with Ms Lomas stating: 'That was the worst week of our lives. We knew she wasn't going to make it.'
This case highlights critical failures in risk communication and emergency response during home births, raising serious questions about adherence to medical guidelines and patient safety protocols in the NHS.
