British woman dies after drunk doctor botches childbirth

A doctor has been charged after a British woman died during childbirth in France. Photo / Thinkstock

Glowing in the evening sunshine, expectant mother Xynthia Hawke looks ecstatic to be on the verge of motherhood.

But days later, the 28-year-old Briton was killed by a doctor, who was reported to have been drunk and to have botched her care during childbirth.

Miss Hawke's devastated parents are believed to have flown to the South of France - where she had been living an idyllic life with her partner - to help him care for the baby boy, who survived and has been named Isaac.

Fighting back tears outside the home where they settled a few months ago, her French partner Yannick Balthazar, 33, said: "It is a very difficult time for us. We are in mourning. I am looking after my family, my son, that is what is important to me now. We need to be with family now. I am going to let justice do its job."

Miss Hawke required a caesarean section after going into labour last month in Ustaritz, the village in the French Pyrenees where she had moved with Mr Balthazar.

After their healthy baby boy was delivered at a private maternity clinic in Orthez on September 26, a resuscitation procedure went horribly wrong.

Anaesthetist Helga Wauters, 45, allegedly inserted a tube into Miss Hawke's oesophagus instead of her windpipe. Miss Hawke was starved of oxygen, had a heart attack and went into a coma.

She was taken to the nearby Centre Hospitalier in Pau, where she died on September 30.

The doctor, who has admitted a 'pathological problem with alcohol', now faces five years behind bars after being charged with aggravated manslaughter.

Wauters, who is Belgian, was working despite difficulties with "expression, comprehension and reactivity", according to a local prosecutor.

Staff said she was slurring her words to the extent that she "could not be understood and she did not seem to understand what people were saying", a source added.

When questioned on the day Miss Hawke died, Wauters was found to have 216milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood - the equivalent of four bottles of wine. The legal driving limit in the UK is 80milligrams.

Miss Hawke grew up in North Petherton, Somerset, where she excelled at her comprehensive, Haygrove School, and won a prize for outstanding achievement in GCSE French. She holidayed in France with her parents Fraser and Clare, now 61 and 56, and her older sister Iris, 30, before moving to Paris to study at the University of London Institute.

Miss Hawke, who worked as a recruiter for businesses looking for multi-lingual employees, updated friends on her pregnancy using social media. Pictures show her beaming during her recent travels through France. In one, she smiles widely in front of a setting sun with a fan cooling her face.

Wauters's lawyer, Florence Hegoburu, warned against any 'hasty conclusions', adding: "My client will assume her responsibilities in relation to the facts that she recognises, but she is not solely responsible. There are grey areas here, and the investigation will make them clearer."

- Daily Mail