Here are some stories featured in the media. Warning - some people may find these stories upsetting.
Evening Standard, 31.01.05
A couple will today demand answers as to why their son died four days after his birth.
Ben Hussey had never opened his eyes and was paralysed in all but one toe because of brain damage.
Today, his parents Rachel and Jake Hussey, will claim a catalogue of errors made by staff during labour starved him of oxygen.
"I want an explanation," said Mrs Hussey, 37. Mrs Hussey, from Plumstead, said she was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich as soon as her waters broke. Once there she was induced with the drug Syntocin which, the couple claim, the hospital gave her more than guidelines recommend.
"They put me on a very high dose," said Mrs Hussey, a child psychologist who was unable to work for six months after the tragedy last March. "They've still not fully explained why they decided to whack up the dose and try to get Ben out as quickly as they did."
The couple, who may sue the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for negligence, claim that once Ben was born - 25 hours after she was admitted to hospital - he was immediately whisked away and connected to machines.
"It was the most unbelievable shock. Ben was lifeless and floppy and blue. Suddenly all these people turn up. There were 14 people in the room at one stage resuscitating him, and loud speakers calling for the crash team. Where the hell were they earlier?
"I hadn't realised till we went down there how serious it was. When I saw he was attached to a whole bank of computers and was having seizures I realised he was very very ill. The news got worse every day."
After four days Ben's life support machine was switched off and Mrs Hussey, her teacher husband and Ben's grandparents were able to hold him.
"He never cried, he never opened his eyes. He only had movement in one toe because he had suffered brain damage and had multiple organ failure,"-said Mrs Hussey. "But we managedto hold him for 12 hours before he died which was incredibly precious and I am very glad we had that time. It was very comforting and peaceful. It was what I yearned to do while he was in the incubator.
"He had Jake's hands and feet and looked a bit like my brother. He was perfectly healthy, a big 9lb baby and that's why everyone is so horrified. Healthy 9lb babies don't die. Special care baby units are used for tiny premature babies - all the equipment was the wrong size.
"I had a completely normal pregnancy with no problems at all. And there was nothing wrong with him when I went into labour."
Today, the couple will hear a coroner examine the evidence.
A statement from Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Trust said: "The questions you have asked are exactly those that will be answered at the inquest.
"The Trust would not want to compromise the coroner's verdict and it would be inappropriate for us to comment ahead of the inquest."
Evening Standard, 17.03.05
Britain has been accused of having a third-world health service by a German couple whose baby died after the birth went catastrophically wrong.
Christoph Schwennicke and his wife Ulrike Weidner, who had moved to London from Berlin, spoke out after their son, Jacob, died three months after being born by emergency Caesarean in St George's hospital in Tooting.
The couple, who are moving back to Germany with their daughter Jule, say the state of the health service in one of the richest countries in the world is a "disgrace and a shame".
Mr Schwennicke, a journalist with a Munich paper who had been posted to London, said: "I want to do what I can to give people a wakeup call. To tell people, 'Listen, I had this experience. I find this system dangerous and you should consider changing something'. As a journalist I am used to judging things maybe too quickly, but this time I've thought a lot about it and I would like to tell you, something is not in order here."
The Anglophile couple, admirers of Tony Blair and committed to the NHS, had decided against a private hospital. "We didn't want to go the posh way. We thought, we'll have our baby here like normal people do. That was a fatal mistake," said Mr Schwennicke.
But they found their local NHS hospital, close to their home in Kingston, fully booked. They were told they would have to go to St George's, 12 miles away. This was in January last year - the baby was not due until September.
But when Ms Weidner looked at the ward, she was appalled. "I heard the number of labours and I heard the number of staff they have," she said. "I spoke afterwards with a lady, pregnant as well, who had come from Singapore. She also was devastated. We said: 'Oh my gosh, it's like the third world. Can you imagine?"
The couple hired a midwife and opted for home birth. On Sunday 28 August Ulrike's contractions started. The midwife arrived but the contractions stopped and she was taken to St George's. By 10am the next day she told staff she was considering an elective Caesarean, but doctors told her to hold on for a vaginal delivery. It was six hours since the contractions had stopped. As an epidural was being administered her uterus "simply exploded", Mr Schwennicke said.
There had been a hidden rupture. It was decided to perform an emergency Caesarean and Jacob was delivered at 13.05. He said he did not hear the baby cry, as he did when their daughter was born. "This time there was just hectic stress. I heard, 'Stop her bleeding, stop her bleeding'. There were three or four over her tummy. Then I almost fainted. I went out. I couldn't stand it any more."
The uterus had been ripped apart, but the baby was stabilised. However an MRI scan showed he had suffered restricted oxygen supply to his brain, causing severe damage, with an 80 per cent chance of severe disability. Once his condition stabilised they were allowed to take him home. But, after suffering three lung infections, he died.
Mr Schwennicke believes a Caesarean should have been carried out sooner.
"I can't fight the feeling that we are the victims of the NHS on a bank holiday when there was too much to do and not enough experienced staff to do it," he said in an interview with The Guardian today. "I can't understand why people tolerate a health system like this one."
Mr Schwennicke and Ms Weidner are taking legal action against St George's. A hospital spokesman said because the case was the subject of legal proceedings he could not comment in detail. He said: "However, we are deeply sorry for what happened. This was a serious and complex case with serious and important lessons for the hospital. The events that surround the incident continue to be examined by doctors and midwives."
Kentnews.co.uk, 2005
A mother has spoken of the enduring heartbreak after her baby died from massive head injuries just hours after being born at a Kent hospital.
Carla and Johnny Bradbrook said their son Joshua died “suffering and in pain” at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford following a series of errors in his delivery.
Since his birth in June, 2005, his parents and clinical negligence specialists Irwin Mitchell have fought a protracted legal battle, which saw Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust finally admit liability for his death in December last year.
Mrs Bradbrook, 31, said that after the General Medical Council’s recent decision to dismiss their claim against the doctor who delivered Joshua they wanted to speak out and highlight their horrific experience.
“It is just the worst thing that could happen to anybody,” she said. “When you go full term you expect to have a baby.
“Labour and delivery is never the most normal thing to experience but he suffered, he was in pain and that is something we imagine and something that never goes away.”
The couple remain haunted by the fact their son was born with fractures to both sides of his skull after several attempts were made to force the birth with both a suction device and forceps.
But even after the trust admitted liability for his death, the GMC advised it would would not re-open its investigations because there were insufficient prospects of establishing that Dr Mohlala, the registrar who oversaw the birth, was unfit to practice.
Mrs Bradbrook said it was her first child and the couple put their trust completely in the doctor and nurses during labour.
“We feel people should be aware that these things happen. You cannot just put 100 per cent faith in doctors.”
The couple have since had another son called Luca who they call “their world”. But they felt unable to go back to the NHS and the two-year-old was born at the private Portland Hospital in London.
“It is such an awful feeling to live with, you feel angry and sad a whole mixture of emotions,” said Mrs Bradbrook, who works in Marks & Spencer and lives in Gravesend with her 30-yearold tower crane driver husband.
“You feel angry at the world and those feelings never go away.”
The trust said it has reviewed its maternity services following Joshua’s death, which are currently rated ‘fair’ by the health watchdog Care Quality Commission.
A spokesman said there is now increased consultant supervision of deliveries that are assisted by instrument such as forceps and suction devices.
The Bradbrook’s solicitor Anita Murphy-O’Reilly revealed the horrifying details of Joshua’s birth, which have emerged since his death.
Mrs Murphy-O’Reilly said the trust’s internal investigation showed that Joshua was in distress and had an abnormal heartbeat during the second stage of labour.
She said that according to the midwives and medical records, Dr Mohlala gave six ‘pulls’ with the ventouse suction device, which is twice the recommended amount.
He then unsuccessfully used forceps before Joshua had to be forced back up the birth canal so Mrs Bradbrook could be given a Caesarean section, she said.
“The GMC’s unwillingness to re-open the case and assess whether Dr Mohlala is responsible for Joshua’s death has meant that the Bradbrooks have been unable to get on with their lives,” Ms Murphy-O’Reilly added.
Mrs Bradbrook said: “When he came out, everything was quiet and there was a really strange atmosphere in the room.
“I heard a little cry and then the nurse kept rubbing my arm and telling me he was okay. He only lived for five hours.”
A spokeswoman for the GMC confirmed that Dr Mohlala, who no longer works at the hospital, was still registered to practise but could not say any more about the case because of confidentiality.
The trust spokesman said: “We have offered our sincere condolences to the family and we have now settled this case.”
Dailymail.co.uk, 18.04.08
Lisa Callaway's son Alwyn weighed 7lb 8oz, with perfectly formed limbs and a shock of dark hair.
But the baby she and husband William had longed for lived only two days, killed by the professionals entrusted with his care.
Mr Callaway, 39, a university registrar, and his wife, a television producer, now know that their child would have lived if 30 warnings, clearly shown on a heart monitor, had been understood by staff at Watford General Hospital.
The evidence of Alwyn's failing heart rate was recorded in medical notes and reported to senior staff 11 times in seven hours - yet no one understood the baby's life was in danger.
A specialist registrar even used the cardiotachograph (CTG) recording of the baby's heart rate as an example of a normal labour as he taught a student - oblivious to the fact that Alwyn was being fatally brain-damaged.
A damning report by the Health Service Ombudsman for England condemns as "indefensible" the way Mrs Callaway's labour was managed.
The report states that a drug used to speed the labour should have been stopped when the CTG showed signs that the baby was being deprived of oxygen.
Instead, staff doubled the dose of Syntocinon, a synthetic version of the hormone which controls contractions.
The report concludes that the baby should have been delivered by caesarean section four hours earlier than his eventual birth - at 3.32pm - but "a system failure" meant the warning signs were not spotted.
An independent expert quoted by the Ombudsman said: "It is difficult to avoid the clear conclusion that the most important test of fetal wellbeing - the CTG - was actually giving all the clues it needed to about the fetal condition but that this was simply not recognised by those looking after Mrs Callaway."
A caesarean delivery before 10.50am would probably have been associated with a "good outcome", he said, adding: "'I would have expected the registrar, other doctor or a midwife to have appreciated the deterioration in this baby's condition in labour."
The shocking truth about Alwyn's death has taken almost four years to emerge but the Callaways have always been determined eventually to expose the appalling catalogue of errors which cost his life.
Mrs Callaway, 41, who has since had two healthy sons, said: "We had decorated the nursery ready for Alwyn and were so looking forward to our baby."
She still cries when she recalls the birth. "You are so trusting when it is your first baby. You don't question things.
"I thought everything was normal and the staff kept saying they were happy with the labour.
"I only started to panic at the end when the midwife put me on my side "to make the baby more comfortable".
But Alwyn was finished by then. His heartbeat was dying out.
"They tried to get him out five times with a suction cap and when they finally pulled him out with forceps he was just plonked on my chest and I shouted to William, 'He's dead! He's dead!'."
She said the baby had huge gouges on his head from the forceps and was not moving.
A team worked on him for 20 minutes, leaving without a word to the Callaways.
"As far as I was concerned, my baby had been killed by his horrific and brutal delivery."
The couple realised their son had been in distress for seven hours only when they received a copy of the medical notes.
These showed his heartbeat slowing during contractions and taking progressively longer to get back to normal.
When the hospital did not admit mistakes or apologise, the couple complained to the Healthcare Commission and in July 2005 took their case to the Ombudsman.
His report has vindicated their determination to gain justice for their son, stating that Mrs Callaway's concern about the abnormal CTG trace was validated by his investigation.
Following the traumatic birth Alwyn - his names means most beloved - was transferred to intensive care at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London.
Mrs Callaway was allowed to touch her child once before he was taken away.
She was reunited with him the next morning but he lived for only two days.
"So many people came to his funeral, it was overwhelming," she said.
After the tragedy the Callaways moved repeatedly, carrying Alwyn's ashes with them, before finally returning to their native Wales.
They have since had two more sons, Iolo, two, and Macsen, nine weeks.
Last year West Herts Hospitals NHS Trust paid substantial damages out of court to settle the couple's legal case for negligence.
The Callaways had wanted their day in court but were frightened that mounting legal costs would leave them homeless.
Mr Callaway, who does voluntary charity work with other bereaved parents for the Stillbirth and Neonatal Deaths Society, said the hospital trust's maternity services were named by the Healthcare Commission as the worst in England in January - three and a half years after his son died.
The trust offered its "sincerest condolences" for the Callaways' "sad loss" but said it could not discuss the case for legal reasons.
In a statement, it claimed that Watford-General was "one of the safest" hospitals in the country, according to a separate report on safety and quality of maternity services.
A spokesman admitted that the trust has learned from "failures" in its service and, following the Healthcare Commission's criticism, is appointing 18 extra midwives and improving its training.
Mrs Callaway leafs through the photographs of Alwyn moments after he was disconnected from all the monitors and respirators to die and she could finally hold him.
She says: "He looks so strong in these photos, but he didn't stand a chance.
"We brought his blanket home with us and kept it in a plastic box so we could keep his smell.
"It was all we had left of him. No one should go through what we have gone through."
A baby boy died minutes after birth – because the hospital had no anaesthetist on duty for an emergency caesarian.
Clare Russell, who went into labour with son Dylan 10 weeks early, arrived at the maternity unit in the middle of the night.
She desperately needed a C-section to save her son, who was coming out feet first in the breech position.
But the hospital had a cost-cutting policy of not having an anaesthetist during the night. Clare had to give birth naturally, and Dylan died when the umbilical cord got wrapped around him, starving him of blood and oxygen.
Research has shown a C-section in those circumstances would almost certainly have saved Dylan.
A few weeks after the tragedy, Clare – who is speaking out in the hope of preventing other mums-to-be facing the same heartbreak – met Royal Shrewsbury Hospital bosses.
Dr Adam Gornhill, the consultant who delivered Dylan, confirmed that Dylan could have lived if she had gone into labour 12 hours earlier – when an anaesthetist would have been on duty.
He told her: “There was nobody to do the C-section because there was no anaesthetist. If it had been 12.25 in the daytime there would have been a team on. We have to work within our limitations. It’s a resource policy decision.”
The revelations provide a snapshot of the crisis on maternity wards across the NHS and will heap more pressure on the Government to improve standards.
Dylan’s tragically short life ended six years ago. Last month the hospital finally agreed compensation, an undisclosed five-figure sum.
Clare, 38, of Madeley, Telford, said: “How can it be right that because I gave birth at night my son had less chance of survival?
“I don’t blame the doctors because they did all they could. But who is making these decisions and saying things should be this way in the NHS? If you need a C-section you should be able to have one – night or day.
“No amount of compensation could make up for the death of my baby. But something can be done to make sure other babies don’t die needlessly like Dylan did.”
Three days before Clare gave birth, her waters broke and she was taken to hospital by husband Tim, 32. As she was only at the 30-week stage, doctors kept her in for two days to monitor her and the baby – but then sent her home, despite her complaining of agonising back pain. Hours later, at 11.40pm, Clare went back to hospital in agony but a midwife left her alone and went to search for a doctor to examine her.
Clare, who has a son, Cade, 14, said: “They were so understaffed. The midwife gave us a heart monitor and told us to see if we could get a reading. I had no gas and air and my back was killing me.”
After almost an hour, a senior doctor arrived but waited 20 minutes before phoning the on-call consultant Dr Gornhill at home.
He ordered a clip to be placed on Dylan to check his heart rate. It showed the baby was distressed and by the time Dr Gornhill got to hospital at 1.10am Clare had almost given birth. Dylan died minutes after being born on November 29, 2003.
The hospital has admitted medical records of Dylan’s condition had been lost and notes from the day Clare’s waters broke were wrong.
Dr Gornhill also admitted Clare should not have been sent home and the hospital admitted taking too long to alert the consultant about Clare’s condition.
During her six-year battle for justice Clare quit her job as a lab assistant to start working as a healthcare assistant at hospitals across Telford. She is determined to help improve NHS standards.
She said: “The doctors did their best to save Dylan but the reality is mistakes were made beforehand which could have prevented his death.
“Doctors and midwives are crippled by a lack of resources. If it doesn’t end, more children like my son will die.”
Last night health experts said it is regarded as good practice for maternity units to have an anaesthetist available 24 hours a day to perform caesarean sections. But Belinda Phipps, of the National Childbirth Trust, said many don’t have them round the clock because hospitals are so over-stretched.
She said: “It is a travesty but the untold story of maternity care in this country is that it is more dangerous for women to give birth at night.”
Trish Rowson, of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said they now have anaesthetic cover 24 hours a day at the hospital.
She added: “The Trust extends its deepest sympathies to Mr and Mrs Russell.”
Newsoftheworld.co.uk, 02.08.09
Katherine Harman will never forget the moment she kissed her dying newborn daughter Ella goodbye - a tiny victim of Britains dangerously understaffed maternity services.
Ella suffocated during birth after a catalogue of appalling blunders at the overstretched NHS hospital in which staff FAILED to spot she was upside down in the womb and used the WRONG FORCEPS to deliver her.
And that last kiss was in the her mind when she fell pregnant twice again. Katherine, 29, picked up the phone and ordered a £3,250 PRIVATE MIDWIFE for the birth of sons Zak and Archie.
"I was determined to pay after what happened to Ella," she says. I could never have another baby in an NHS hospital. I don't trust them.
"How many other people are being robbed of the right to take their babies home because our maternity wards are over-crowded and under-staffed?"
Her words - and the ordeal she endured - echo the shameful state of what was once a maternity service envied worldwide. The statistics are chilling.
Experts believe up to 1,000 BABIES A YEAR in Britain die needlessly like Ella because doctors and midwives are too overstretched or poorly trained to detect warning signs. And while the number of babies born in England and Wales last year reached its highest level - nearly 700,000 - the number of new midwives to cope with the surge remains too low .
The Government released £330 million to the Department of Health in April 2008 to increase midwives into the UK - but Midwifery organisations believe many Primary Care Trusts have not put the money they have been allocated into maternity services.
And it's not only babies who are suffering - more women now die in the UK during childbirth than in EIGHTEEN other European countries. Katherine's nightmare began at her home in Battersea, south London, when she felt contractions every six minutes one night in October, 2006. At 5am she rang Chelsea and Westminster Hospital - where Tony Blair's son Leo was born - to say she was coming in. "They said I 'didn't sound in enough pain' and the ward was full so I had to hold on," says the advertising executive. "They told me to have a bath and wait an hour.
"But now I know our maternity wards are so congested, midwives have to fight to keep women out as long as possible."
At 6am her husband Ben, 32 called the hospital who told them to wait another hour while they 'juggled beds'.
When they got to the hospital Katherine knew she was in the advanced stages of labour.
"But the midwife didn't seem concerned and said there wasn't even any point in giving me an internal examination as her shift was ending," she says.
"I now know NHS guidelines say all mothers-to-be must be examined within 30 minutes of arrival. If she'd done that my daughter could still be alive."
When Katherine's waters broke, tests showed the baby was in distress with her heart rate dropping and a registrar was called to finally perform an internal.
"I knew straight away something was wrong. She shouted, 'Who examined this lady? This baby's breech and the mother's fully dilated!' My baby was coming out legs first."
It was by now too late for a Caesarean so the birth had to be natural with Ella struggling for oxygen. After Katherine was taken into the delivery suite the obstetrician left within minutes. Katherine says: "We were told he had to attend another patient although we couldn't imagine anyone in more danger than Ella." So the birth was taken over by the registrar who at first used the wrong kind of forceps to try to pull Ella out, adding more deadly delay. By the time Ella was born she'd been without oxygen for 18 minutes.
Katherine says: "They had to resuscitate her as she lay next to me before rushing her away, leaving me screaming. We didn't see her for four hours. Then some doctors came back and said if she did survive, she'd be so severely disabled she would never recognise us.
"I knew they were to blame. The next few days were horrendous as we watched Ella fight to stay alive.
"But they eventually took her off life support and Ben and I held her as she deteriorated. She died in our arms five days later. We were told she'd died from oxygen starvation."
Ella was cremated at a family funeral and her heartbroken parents have still not managed to part themselves from her ashes.
This month the Chelsea and Westminster hospital - ranked by a Health Commission as one of the country's worst maternity units - said they had changed key areas of practice to prevent another tragedy.
Chief executive Heather Lawrence wrote to the Harmans: "We have accepted you did not receive the standard of care to which you were entitled and a Clinical Incident Review was carried out. A number of lessons have been learned."
The Harmans were given more than £50,000 in compensation - but as Katherine says: "That will never bring back Ella. We live with what happened to her every day of our lives." She went on to have son, Zak, 18 months, and Archie, three months, without a hitch with the help of private midwife Annie Francis each time.
Annie, 54 - who is a self-employed member of the Independent Midwives Association - says: "The maternity service is on its knees. It's no wonder midwives are leaving the NHS in droves. Women are rushed through labour and our maternity wards have become conveyor belts. It is dangerous."
Delays domed Ava
Little Ava Sims Teskey-King died after blunders during her birth left her brain damaged.
Ava was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and body at Hull Women and Children's Hospital.
Her mum Leanne, 34, said: "My baby's heart rate was high. I should have been monitored every few minutes but the midwife didn't do it for another hour.
"Ava was being strangled by the cord every time I had a contraction. When they did send for a doctor it took 30 minutes for one to arrive because there was no one on the grounds. In the end Ava was born not breathing and had to be resuscitated. She could have been all right if she'd been born 11 minutes earlier." Ava died of a heart attack at 21 months.
Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust paid Leanne and partner Lee £104,000 in compensation. "Whatever they paid us, it would never be enough for the loss of our little girl," said Leanne.
"It's heartbreaking to think Ava could have been born perfectly healthy if mistakes hadn't been made by the medical staff."
BBC News, 05.11.09
A hospital has apologised to a Greater Manchester mother who lost her baby after a midwife misread vital scans showing the child was in distress.
Tracy Last, from Chadderton, was admitted to Royal Oldham hospital after going into labour on 19 October 2007.
Mrs Last underwent standard checks but unbeknown to her and her husband, a midwife misread a trace used to monitor the baby's heart rate during labour.
A hospital spokeswoman accepted care fell below expected standards.
Medical negligence
The midwife misinterpreted the reading as being "reassuring" when it was "non-reassuring" on repeated occasions and the findings were not acted upon.
The error was compounded by the doctor on duty failing to spot the problems revealed by the trace when he checked an hour before the couple's daughter was born lifeless.
An inquest at Oldham Magistrates' Court on Wednesday heard that the baby was delivered through forceps with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.
Coroner Simon Nelson recorded a narrative verdict that the child died of perinatal asphyxia during labour.
The couple are now taking legal action against Pennine Acute NHS Trust which runs the hospital, in a claim for medical negligence.
'Tragic loss'
Their solicitor, Jenny Urwin, said if Mrs Last had had a Caesarean section sooner their daughter Olivia may not have died.
Cathy Trinick, head of midwifery at the hospital trust, said: "We would again offer our sincere condolences and apology to Olivia's family.
"Olivia's death is a tragic loss and of great sadness to her family. The clinical team and the trust share that loss and sadness.
"The trust accepts the coroner's findings that some of the care afforded to Mrs Last during the late morning and early afternoon of 20 October 2007 fell below the standard expected by our patients and their families.
"A number of steps have already been taken and changes made to our procedures to ensure, where possible, such incidents are prevented from happening again."
Mirror.co.uk, 29.11.09
Grieving mother Maggie Turnbull last night revealed the reality behind the scandal of Britain's worst NHS hospitals.
Ms Turnbull's newborn baby girl died last year at Basildon Hospital in Essex - which a report last week revealed had been the location of at least 70 needless deaths.
The 26-year-old is convinced baby Megan could have survived if she had received better care after she was sent home and told she had "nothing to worry about".
Last night she said: "It is shocking that Basildon and other hospitals like it have been allowed to get into this appalling state.
"We need better means of inspecting hospitals, including more surprise visits. The hospitals are giving a false impression to inspectors - after all, if you've got visitors coming to your house, you tidy up."
She spoke out as Health Secretary Andy Burnham tried to calm public fears ahead of the publication of new figures on abnormally high death rates at NHS hospitals.
Health service regulators are already probing performance levels at 11 hospitals amid fears more hospitals will be drawn into the scandal. It was revealed yesterday the 2008 report found abnormally high death rates at a fifth of hospital trusts in England, with 3,145 excess deaths at 26 hospitals in the past year.
On Friday, the chairman of Colchester Hospital in Essex, Richard Bourne, was sacked after it came to light that death rates were 12 per cent higher than average.
In the cases of both Colchester and the Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, watchdogs at the Care Quality Commission failed to note poor standards of care.
Ms Turnbull told the Sunday Mirror she went to Basildon Hospital in August 2008 for her routine 16-week scan.
She was told she was fine and sent away, but was soon in pain. She went back to the hospital and saw a consultant.
But weeks later she was rushed to hospital in agony, only to be told to go home for a second time. In the early hours of October 28, Ms Turnbull woke up in unbearable pain. Baby Megan was delivered in an ambulance on the way to hospital, but she only lived for five minutes.
Ms Turnbull said: "The whole hospital is incompetent. I'm not saying my baby would definitely have survived... but I think she would have had a much better chance."
A hospital spokeswoman said: "We very much regret this patient is concerned about her care.
"We are investigating the case."
