'So happy' How one hospital turned poor rating around

Two days after giving birth, Juliana Nascimento Barbosa is still ecstatic about becoming a mother.

- Denis Campbell

“I’m so happy to have my baby,” she says from her bed in Queen’s hospital in Romford, Essex, smiling broadly.

To her left, her husband, Emerson, sits on a chair. To her right, their newborn son, Dominic, lies on a neonatal resuscitaire receiving phototherapy to help relieve his jaundice.

Nascimento Barbosa is still in hospital - not just to be with Dominic but because, like so many women, the birth was complicated.

Her labour was progressing, albeit slowly. But then a CTG (cardiotocograph) trace, to monitor her baby’s heartbeat, showed he had passed meconium - his first stool - while still in utero.

“That can be a sign of a baby’s distress, perhaps because they have an infection or are not getting enough oxygen,” explains Dr Kathryn Tompsett, the head of maternity and children’s care at Queen’s. “When that happens the priority is to get the baby born ASAP,” says Tompsett.

Such safety-first medicine is common in childbirth, where two lives could be at risk. A wrong decision can lead to a baby suffering brain damage and cost the NHS £20m in damages.

Nascimento Barbosa is thankful for her son’s safe arrival and the care she received. Using Emerson to translate her native Portuguese, she explains that “I had one problem - I have depression.”

She namechecks two staff in particular who provided vital support during her daunting recent days and months: Mariane, a psychotherapist who is part of the hospital’s maternal mental health team, and Yassi, a midwife who helped deliver Dominic.