Julia Geis-Clements and her partner are suing the UK health service, claiming their midwife gave inadequate advice on how to breastfeed their daughter. Photo / 123RF
Julia Geis-Clements and her partner are suing the UK health service, claiming their midwife gave inadequate advice on how to breastfeed their daughter. Photo / 123RF
A couple whose baby daughter suffocated during her first breastfeed are now suing the NHS for millions after the girl was left with a string of medical complications that require 24-hour care.
Julia Geis-Clements, 39, and her financier husband, Lee Clements, 41, say a midwife gave inadequate advice on how to breastfeed their daughter, Cerys.
The new mother fed her daughter for the first time in July 2012 at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital, but the baby stopped breathing.
Cerys now has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and visual impairment, but the parents' lawyers claim she would not have these ailments had the midwife warned them to keep their daughter's airway clear as she was held against her mother's breast.
The High Court heard although Geis-Clements had attended ante-natal classes, Cerys was her first baby and the "exhausted" mother had no experience of feeding an infant.
Cerys, who was born in 2012, has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and visual impairment. Photo / JustGiving
The couple, from Denham, Buckinghamshire, claim the midwife should have returned to check on Cerys 10 minutes into the feed and had she done so and warned them to keep one of the baby's nostrils free, the tragedy would have been averted.
At one point during the feed, Geis-Clements felt her daughter "lose contact" with the breast, her QC Angus Moon told the court.
She "guided" her baby back into position but soon afterwards Cerys seemed to doze off.
"She did not want to disturb Cerys as she thought that she was sleeping," he said, but became alarmed when she noticed her turning "pale and floppy".
Almost half an hour into the feed, her husband rushed to find the midwife, who returned to find Cerys had no pulse.
Moon said: "Cerys had suffered an episode of hypoxia which had caused her severe brain damage," which has meant she has developed a number of "significant neuro-developmental problems".
She now requires 24-hour care because of the need for constant monitoring and regular suction of her airways, Moon added.
Geis-Clements, a marketing manager, is suing Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust on Cerys' behalf, alleging the midwife gave negligent advice.
Because of the severity of Cerys' injuries, the claim is of "maximum value", and she will win millions to pay for her care if Mrs Justice May rules against the NHS.
Cerys was delivered in the hospital's birthing pool, but received emergency first aid immediately afterwards to help her breathe spontaneously before she was handed to Geis-Clements, the court heard.
Although the infant seemed to be "latched on", Geis-Clements said she "felt uncomfortable" as she could not see her face.
"I instinctively felt that she might be too close up to my breast," she told the court.
"This concern led me to check with the midwife that Cerys would be able to breathe while positioned like that.
"The midwife said that a baby would wriggle and pull their head back if they could not breathe properly during breastfeeding.
"Other than answering my query about whether Cerys could breathe, I remember that the midwife did not give me any advice about breastfeeding."
The midwife, however, says she advised Cerys' mother that she should support the infant's back and neck during feeding, but not to hold her too tightly and not to hold the back of her head.
She had no recollection of Geis-Clements "specifically asking her about the possibility of her baby not being able to breathe during feeding", said John Whitting QC, representing the NHS trust.
Whitting told the court the midwife would have explained the risks of holding the back of a baby's head during feeding and that a child will not suffocate on the breast so long as it can move its head back.
Geis-Clements, he added, had been an "assiduous" attender at pre-birth classes, at which "safe breast feeding practice would have been covered in some detail".
The cause of Cerys' oxygen starvation was probably a "random post-natal sudden collapse" which could not have been foreseen and in which negligence played no part, he told the court.
