'Destroyed our family': Mum's heartbreak after hospital blunder costs unborn son his life

Sunny Alam and Sarah Hassan lost their baby boy due to a clinical error. Photo / Nine

An Australian mother has opened up about the heartbreaking moment her baby boy died during birth, due to a clinical mistake by staff.

Sarah Hassan was at Bunbury's St John of God Private Hospital in Perth on December 9 to give birth to her baby.

But a routine procedure turned deadly after she was mistakenly given 100 milligrams of morphine, more than 10 times the prescribed dose.

Hassan then slipped into a coma and suffered oxygen deprivation and heart failure which nearly killed her.

The heartbreaking mistake meant her baby boy Zahid didn't survive.

When Hassan woke up after four days, she wanted to know where her baby was.

"I was looking everywhere for my baby. He was not there," she recounted, sucking in air sharply at the difficult memory.

Her partner Sunny Alam said after days of trauma he had also experienced, he did not have it in him to tell his wife their baby had died.

It was Hassan's mother who delivered the heartbreaking news via a video call.

Sunny Alam and Sarah Hassan lost their baby boy due to a clinical error. Photo / Nine

"And she was telling me that it happened, it happened to anyone so you need to be relaxed," she told ABC.

"Then I realised that my baby's gone."

"It was devastating, it broke my whole life," she told the West Australia.

"That destroyed our family within a moment."

Hospital staff didn't know anything was wrong until the next morning when they thought she was sleeping instead of falling in a coma.

Hassan and Alam had been dreaming of a baby for five years.

She says it was the worst day of her life.

"I was dreaming of a baby for a long time, for five years. It was the worst day. It just broke my whole life," Hassan told 9 News.

"The thing is I was asking myself every time, why did I take the morphine? Because of that I lost my child."

Sarah Hassan attended hospital to have her baby, where she was mistakenly given 100 milligrams of morphine, estimated to be 10 times the prescribed dose. The error killed her baby. Photo / Nine

Alam was sleeping at the time Hassan was in a coma.

He says his heart sank when he was alerted to what went wrong.

"His body was still warm. What happened to my wife?

"They've destroyed our family within one moment."

The hospital says it is continuing to probe what went wrong.

"This is a tragic occurrence. The hospital feels deeply for the family, and will continue to investigate," it said in a statement.

"It appears the incident was caused by human error."

Staff involved in the incident have been stood down while an investigation is under way.

The midwife involved has had her registration suspended and another staff member involved has resigned.

Despite still grieving for the loss of her child, Hassan wants to share her story to warn others to ask questions and understand what is happening while in hospital.

"Ask when given medicine, ask what is it, how much it is."