A devastated mother whose baby died just a week after birth has said she trusted NHS professionals who guided her home birth but was not informed about the associated risks. Poppy Hope Lomas was seven days old when she died at University College Hospital in central London after complications during a home birth that mother Gemma Lomas said she was encouraged to have.
Inquest Findings
An inquest at Barnet Coroner's Court in north London heard that the newborn likely died from a severe hypoxic ischaemic brain event, suffered in the 30 minutes before her birth, which occurs when the brain lacks oxygen. The court was told that Ms Lomas was failed by the NHS trust, which did not make her aware of the risks involved with a natural home birth.
Speaking to reporters outside the court, Ms Lomas said she had "trusted the professionals who were guiding us," adding that Poppy "should have had the safest possible start in her life." She stated, "Today's finding confirmed what we have lived every single day since losing our precious daughter Poppy. We came here for the truth because Poppy's life mattered and because she deserves to be remembered for more than the circumstances of her death. Nothing will ever bring her back but hearing the truth today acknowledged means everything to us."
Call for Change
Ms Lomas expressed hope that Poppy's story would encourage changes to ensure "no other family has to endure the pain that we will carry for the rest of our lives." She added, "Poppy was our daughter, she was loved beyond words and she will never be forgotten."
Poppy's planned home delivery was carried out with Edgware Midwives, the designated home birth team at Barnet Hospital, part of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. Ms Lomas stated that Alice Boardman, head midwife at Edgware Midwives and present at Poppy's birth, actively encouraged her to have a vaginal birth after Caesarean (VBAC) at home. She said, "I was encouraged to do what we did. I would have never made decisions to harm myself or my baby in any capacity. So I think moving forward for women and families, having the right information presented to them in a good way will make the decisions easier."
Failures in Care
In a written statement read to the coroner, the inquest heard that midwife Sasha Field, who was at Poppy's birth, said an ambulance should have been called when she heard the baby's heart rate slow down after a contraction, around 90 minutes before she was born. Senior coroner Andrew Walker noted that failing to discuss the decelerations with Ms Lomas and not deciding to return to hospital was "likely to be a really serious failure to provide basic medical care." The trust agreed to support an "unsafe home delivery that was against medical advice" and failed to address "an accumulation of risk factors."
Mr Walker told the inquest: "The home delivery midwives worked against a background of an accumulation of risk factors including a prolonged rupture of the membranes without antibiotic cover, two decelerations around one and a half hours before delivery, the slow delivery and poor condition at birth. There was a failure to recognise and appropriately manage these risk factors." He added that this resulted in an "absence or delay in interventions and actions." Poppy died days later on October 26, 2022, as a result.
