Apology to mothers over 'dead' baby errors

Joanna Barro, 25, was told by staff at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton that they could not detect a foetal heartbeat when she went for a scan while eight weeks pregnant with her first child.

She was advised to go home and let the miscarriage procedure take its course. She returned for a follow-up scan a week later as she refused to accept her baby was dead, and learned there was a heartbeat.

Miss Barro went on to give birth seven months later to healthy 7lb 4oz Ruby, who will be three in February.

Her case echoes that of Sofia Taylor, 22, who refused to accept her baby was dead at nine weeks in August at the same hospital and demanded a second scan which showed her pregnancy was progressing normally.

Yesterday hospital officials reassured pregnant women in the area, saying these were isolated cases of human error which happened more than three years apart.

But Miss Barro said staff should have been absolutely sure before telling her that her unborn child was dead.

Speaking from her home in Telscombe Cliffs, she said: "I had really wanted a baby for ages so I didn't want to believe that I had lost it. It didn't seem real. Call it a mother's instinct, but I didn't believe she was dead."

After learning there was a heartbeat a week later, the single mother said she felt a mixture of happiness, confusion and anger.

"They shouldn't have told me I had miscarried without being 100 per cent sure," she said. "I had not had a second scan I would have terminated Ruby."

Mrs Taylor, from Peacehaven, said it was "mother's intuition" that prompted her to demand a second scan.

"If I had listened to them I would have lost my baby. It doesn't bear thinking about."