Case study: one mother's story

NOTHING “REAL” has changed as a result of the report, according to one of the women whose case was reviewed.

Martha O’Neill Brennan, Athenry, Co Galway, whose son Aaron was born four years ago, said the only reason a DC (dilation and curettage) was not carried out on the day she was told she had miscarried was that she had to get home to let her childminder finish for the day. This gave her time to still “feel pregnant” and so seek a second scan.

She was seven weeks pregnant when she had a bleed and visited her gynaecologist, who wanted to do a DC there and then when he could detect no heartbeat.

Over the next four days at home, she said she could still “feel pregnant”; when she attended for the DC, she asked for a second scan.

The nurse, she said, made her feel like she was wasting hospital time.

When the second scan showed she was in fact still pregnant, her concerns at how this could happen were dismissed by her gynaecologist. “These things happen,” he told her.

While she welcomed the recommendation that training in the use of ultrasound machines for all clinicians be mandatory, she said a second scan should also be mandatory and the woman should not have to ask for it.