Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.
Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early.
They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.
Miss Capewell, 23, said doctors refused to even see her son Jayden, who lived for almost two hours without any medical support.
She said he was breathing unaided, had a strong heartbeat and was even moving his arms and legs, but medics refused to admit him to a special care baby unit.
Miss Capewell is now fighting for a review of the medical guidelines.
I wonder if this child is included in Britain's infant mortality statistics or do they, like Cuba, just classify it as an 'interrupted birth'?
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US NICUs have the same policies and for the same reasons (inadequate lung development at <22 weeks makes interventions a futile torture for the baby). The guidelines are drawn up by medics and ethicists not politicians and they serve to guide medics in making difficult decisions.
It has nothing to do with the healthcare system, since doctors around the world take a similar approach regardless of how their healthcare is financed. No doctor wants to put a baby through being intubated, lines put in, if their basic dvelopmental physiology will condemn those efforts to failure. Not fair to the baby. Not fair to the doctors and nurses. And ultimately not fair to the mother.
Read some embryology and try to understand the lung development of a baby born at this gestation.
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