22-Week-Old Baby Dies After Doctors Refuse to Save Her Life

"If she did pass I could look you in the eye and say thank you for trying. You decided her fate, not God, and now I’ve got to live with that forever."

By Nancy Flanders

Live Action News

Unexpectedly pregnant with their sixth child, Sophie Dennis and her husband were initially shocked, but by the time they traveled from the United Kingdom to Spain for their family vacation at 13 weeks gestation, they loved their new preborn child as much as any of their others. However, that vacation would be the beginning of a heartbreaking struggle to save their preborn baby girl only to tragically lose her, they say, due to medical negligence. 

Baby Autumn would be born extremely premature at 22 weeks and six days gestation – a gray area in which some doctors would offer her medical intervention, but others would not. Autumn’s doctors would choose the latter, despite her mother Sophie’s repeated requests for help for her premature baby. Some children born as early as 21 weeks have survived, thanks to medical assistance.

While on vacation, Sophie began to experience bleeding so heavy that she had to wrap a towel around herself. She went to the local hospital, but a language barrier kept her from fully understanding what was happening. Thankfully, the woman they were renting their vacation apartment from accompanied her and was able to explain some of what the doctors were saying.

“I just remember them saying the word hematoma and the measurements of it,” Sophie told Live Action News. “So the two weeks spent there I did a lot of googling. Subchronic hematoma 3.2 cm. I phoned home a few times to speak to someone at the hospital. I’m sensitive. I’m obviously worried. The bleeding started again and I bleed for the rest of the holiday. But it wasn’t fresh blood so that was good.”

As soon as they arrived back in the United Kingdom, Sophie went to the hospital where an ultrasound revealed baby Autumn was perfectly content – a huge relief. Sophie’s cervix was closed as well, which was another good sign. However, doctors did not check the size of the hematoma and instead scheduled a scan for two weeks later to measure it. Sophie expressed her dissatisfaction, but there was nothing she could do. She went home, happy that her daughter was safe, and researched outcomes of pregnancies with hematoma.

When she returned for the scan to measure the hematoma, doctors told her that most of the time the body simply reabsorbs it or it continues to grow. They assured her that women go on to have healthy pregnancies and that while she could go into preterm labor, in her case, she was most likely to have miscarried the baby while she was on vacation. The hematoma had grown from 3.2 to 7.2 cm.

“The told me, ‘The baby looks good, and there was no fresh bleeding’,” said Sophie. “But blood is an irritant to the uterus so that can cause contractions. It should have been a warning sign to keep an eye on this lady and this baby.”

Live Action News story continues