coralbenroman — Coral and Ben with son Roman

A Ramsgate mum will take on a 12,000 ft skydive challenge in memory of her baby son who passed away just two days after birth.

Coral Thompson, 33, will raise funds for Making Miracles birth trauma and bereavement care charity in the name of son Roman Line who died of Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy – a brain injury that occurs when a baby’s brain doesn’t get enough oxygen or blood flow.

Coral, who is mum to seven other children aged two to 14, was admitted to QEQM labour ward at Margate for a planned induction of labour on April 6 last year.

She said: “They broke my waters but I was leaking fluids for two hours and felt something was not right.

“They were doing checks on his heartbeat but not on a monitor, they were using a (hand held) doppler but then on one of the checks something wasn’t right.”

Coral says she then felt her baby ‘drop’ from high up to low in her pelvis.

An attempt was made to listen to the baby’s heart rate with the doppler but it was not clearly heard.

A second attempt was made but because it was thought that Coral could feel her baby move, the midwife thought the problem was faulty equipment.

Another doppler device was used but there were issues with ‘background noise’.

Eventually an ultrasound scan was carried out but no heartbeat was found and Coral was taken into surgery for an emergency Caesarean.

Coral said: “He went over one and a half hours without a heartbeat before the emergency C section, they should have pressed the emergency button before then.”

Roman was born at 1.15am on April 7 but he was floppy and not breathing and had no detectable heartbeat.

Baby Roman was resuscitated and an emergency neonatal collapse call was made at 1.16am to bring in additional senior members of the neonatal team.

Roman was moved to the Special Care Bay Unit (SCBU) at QEQM and had therapeutic cooling before transfer to the NICU at William Harvey Hospital (WHH) for intensive care support and therapeutic cooling for suspected hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE).

Coral said: “He couldn’t breathe on his own, he had life support. I didn’t know until coming out of sedation at Margate that my son would not survive.

“My partner and mum had been sent home before they told me which meant I had to ring (partner) Ben and tell hm our son was going to die.”

Roman passed away in Ashford’s Twinkling Stars suite on 9th April.

Coral said: “He was gone in five minutes once they took him off the life support. Ben said his pupils were black and we knew he had gone.”

Coral says she has since been diagnosed with PTSD related to the tragic death of her baby which came on the heels of her stepdad and then her brother’s death.

An investigation carried out into the circumstances of Roman’s death concluded: “When the baby’s heart rate could not be found it should have been immediately escalated to the Obstetric team.

“However, it is evident that both midwives assumed that the inability to hear the baby’s heart was due to faulty equipment which meant that they did not recognise or declare an obstetric emergency as they did not consider that the baby’s heart would not be present.

“Assistance was sought from another member of the midwifery team in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the baby’s heart before escalating to the Obstetrician on duty. This led to a delay in diagnosis of an absent fetal heart rate for up to 30 minutes.

“It is acknowledged that the parents should have been fully involved and included in the proposed course of action to take when it was confirmed by the Obstetrician that the baby’s heart rate could not be found.

“However, this was a complex decision to make that was time sensitive and was compounded by the conflicting information given to the Obstetrician as to when the baby’s heart rate had last been heard.

“This played a significant part in the Obstetricians thought process and was key to the decision making at that moment in time as this was a rare and difficult situation to make immediate decisions about and only with hindsight can we reflect differently.”

The report noted there was a period of 5 hours and 26 minutes when the baby’s heart rate was not auscultated (listened to) and there was a ‘lack of urgency in the escalation to the obstetric team.’

A number of recommendations were made following the investigation into Roman’s death, including to make sure face to face Obstetric reviews are carried out prior to an induction of labour and ensuring staff escalate the issue to a multidisciplinary team when they are unable to find a baby’s heartbeat.

Coral says her family is grieving and trying to come to terms with the loss of Roman, a process made harder due to the six months it took to complete a post-mortem

The skydive on April 26 at Headcorn is a way to keep her son’s memory alive and help others.

She said: “I want to raise awareness for other people who might be struggling like us. I want my boy to be remembered and to show he did exist and I want to help the Making Memories charity which helps bereaved families and provides counselling.

“I didn’t receive help directly from the charity but went through them for other help and they have been very supportive and are always at the end of the phone if you need them.

“It’s the hardest thing we have ever had to do, to say goodbye to such a perfect little boy . Roman was and still is such a big part of all our lives.”

Former Ellington student Coral says she has always wanted to skydive and partner Ben will be there to support her.

She added: “For us April is a hard month, especially this year as it will be Roman’s first heavenly birthday and a year since he passed, so I am doing this jump to make my little boy proud.”