Inquest into newborn's death finds 'missed opportunities'

AN INQUEST into the death of a three-day-old baby has found there were “missed opportunities” in the level of care given to his mother in the lead-up to his birth.

- BRYANA FRANCIS Reporter

Coolio Carl Justin John Morgan was born on May 2, 2020, at the Princess of Wales hospital in Bridgend to Kimberley Phillips and Carl Morgan, of Llwydarth Road, Maesteg, but died three days later at Singleton Hospital in Swansea on May 5 after he was deprived of oxygen during birth.

The inquest at Pontypridd Coroner’s Court heard that his mother, Kimberley, 44, had come into hospital to be induced due to her maternal age on May 1, 2020, at 39 weeks’ gestation.

After being induced at 12.15pm Kimberley complained that she was in pain in the evening and was prescribed paracetamol. She repeatedly told the midwives she felt “like a tampon had been misinserted” and complained that she was “in agony’.

As the evening of May 1 went on, she began to feel even worse. Her midwife Nicola Morong said she was hot and sweaty, had a low temperature of 36.1°C and began vomiting. Kimberley's waters broke and there was bloodstained amniotic fluid. She was rushed to the labour ward.

Bryony Tweedale, the labour ward coordinator at the hospital at the time of Coolio's birth, said he was born on an “exceptionally busy night” and described how Kimberley appeared when she arrived in the labour ward.