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Bereaved mother still searching for answers from Nottingham City Hospital six years after baby death

Warning: This article contains details about a stillbirth experience

A bereaved mother, whose baby was stillborn at Nottingham City Hospital six years ago, has told ITV News Central she still doesn't have clear answers as to why her son died.

Leah Wright has joined the Nottingham maternity review after receiving a letter which said there may have been failings in her care.

Since the review began more than 2,000 letters have been sent to families, who may have experienced failings in their care.

To date, 1,898 families are part of the review into 412 maternity experiences, led by former senior midwife Donna Ockenden - which launched in 2022.

Leah told ITV News Central's health correspondent Nancy Cole that receiving the letter made her feel 'like someone was listening'.

She said: "It was a sigh a relief, because we knew there was somebody there and that they wanted to listen.

"When I read the letter, I said straight away - I need to do this. I need to not only do this for myself, but for Mason."


Leah wright tells ITV Central it was a 'relief' to get a letter through the post about the Nottingham maternity review.


Leah's son Mason was stillborn at 27 weeks.

She was told two hours after arriving at Nottingham City Hospital, after experiencing blood loss, there was no sign of a heartbeat.

Leah said: "It was a very long time before I found out what had actually happened. Nobody was looking at me or telling me anything."

"He was 1 pound 5 when he was born so he was really tiny."

She was later told there were issues with her placenta but a post mortem didn't determine why he died.

Leah is still unclear what went wrong. But for her what is clear, is a lack of bereavement care from the trust, left her feeling alone.

She said: "When I was in hospital I was given a card for a lady who came to see me, she told me I could ring her when I got out of hospital.

"I tried to get in touch with her quite a few times, but there was no reply. I was on my own basically - I had family, but there was no professional help."

Senior midwife Donna Ockenden said: "Every week a new family or two will contact the review and then we go through a process with them.

"We still anticipate that we will publish our final review in September next year. I'm confident that we can keep listening to women and keep receiving new experiences from women until June next year."

The review team are planning a gathering in Nottingham on 15 June for families to meet other families. This will be the second time they hold this kind of event.

Nottingham University Hospitals Trust has apologised for failings in Leah's care and has said it would be happy to meet with her to try and help get the answers she's looking for.

Anthony May, Chief Executive of Nottingham University Hospitals said: "I would like to share our sincere condolences to Ms Wright for her loss, and of course apologise for any failings in the care she received in 2018.

"It is absolutely right and proper that Ms Wright is part of the Independent Review into our maternity services.

"If she feels able to, we would be very happy to discuss Ms Wright’s experience with her to try and help get the answers that she is looking for and to help us continue to learn and improve."


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