"Stillbirth at term"

Last year I had a healthy, low risk pregnancy with my baby. I had my 38 week midwife appointment where the midwife performed a stretch and sweep. The risks were not explained to me. As they did this I recall the midwife exclaimed “Oh your baby didn’t like that! They shot straight back up!”. The midwife said this casually like this was no cause for concern and did not check the heartbeat afterwards. Later that night, after reduced movements, I presented to the hospital where an ultrasound confirmed my baby was dead.

I birthed my baby on the 12th and the care from the midwife and during the hospital was good. They ran blood tests on me, tests on the placenta, and all came back fine. The hospital talked up the “rainbow appointment” that we would have soon, claiming this appointment was to support us and try to seek answers. We attended this appointment feeling hopeful and we left totally shattered. What they claimed to be an appointment to help us find answers we felt was pretty much a “don’t sue us meeting”. I felt the doctor was tactless with no empathy. At one point I recall they said “you should have been taking elevate” like that was the reason our healthy baby died. I told the doctor I was taking elevate. In my opinion, the doctor was the worst kind of person for representing the hospital for this kind of meeting.

The doctor followed up this meeting with a formal letter in the mail a month later, again with seemingly zero empathy and reminding me to take elevate next time. The doctor stated our baby “had passed meconium which suggests that something had suddenly happened to our baby to cause them to come to harm”. There was no mention of the stretch and sweep that was performed just hours before their death, where the midwife confirmed their sudden reaction to this.

Four months on, we are still all grieving. Our baby’s death continues to affect everyone in our family. We are still trying to pick up the pieces of our lives and move forward.

I am angry. I am angry that it seems to me the hospital can put their fear of being sued ahead of showing the empathy and decency to us that we deserve.

Has our baby’s death been recorded by the hospital as an adverse outcome given it occurred just hours after a medical procedure? Was it investigated by the coroner?