Julia Geis-Clements, 39, pictured outside the High Court in London where she is suing the NHS
A couple whose baby daughter suffocated during her first breast feed are suing the NHS for millions, claiming they were let down by a midwife.
Julia Geis-Clements, 39, and her financier husband, Lee Clements, 41, from Denham in Buckinghamshire, say a midwife gave inadequate advice on how to breast feed their daughter, Cerys.
They claim she would have escaped a lifetime of disability had the midwife warned them to keep her airway clear as she was held against her mother’s breast.
Cerys collapsed less than half an hour after she was born at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in 2012, the High Court heard.
Although Mrs Geis-Clements had attended ante-natal classes Cerys was her first baby and the ‘exhausted’ mother had no experience of feeding an infant.
The court heard Cerys now has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and visual impairment, as well as by ‘significant neuro-developmental problems’.
She requires 24-hour care due to the need for constant monitoring and regular suction of her airways.
Mrs Geis-Clements, a marketing manager, is now suing Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust on Cerys’ behalf, alleging the midwife gave negligent advice.
Due to the severity of her injuries Cerys’ claim is of ‘maximum value’ and she will win millions to pay for her care if Mrs Justice May rules against the NHS.
The couple claim the midwife should, as promised, have returned to check on Cerys 10 minutes into the feed.
Mr Geis-Clements and her financier husband, Lee Clements, 41, (pictured outside court) say a midwife gave inadequate advice on how to breast feed their daughter, Cerys
The couple’s QC told the court that during the feed Mrs Geis-Clements felt Cerys ‘lose contact’ with the breast.
She ‘guided’ her baby back into position but soon afterwards, Cerys ‘seemed to doze off’, he added.
He said: ‘She did not want to disturb Cerys as she thought that she was sleeping,’ but became alarmed when she noticed her turning ‘pale and floppy’.
Twenty five minutes into the feed, her husband rushed off to find the midwife but when she returned she could feel no pulse on Cerys.
Mr Moon added: ‘In fact Cerys had suffered an episode of hypoxia which had caused her severe brain damage.’
Cerys was delivered in the hospital’s birthing pool, but received emergency first aid immediately afterwards to help her breathe spontaneously, the court heard.
She was then handed to Mrs Geis-Clements for her first taste of mother’s milk.
Although the infant seemed to be ‘latched on’, Mrs Geis-Clements said she ‘felt uncomfortable’ as she could not see her face.
She told the court: ‘I instinctively felt that she might be too close up to my breast. This concern led me to check with the midwife that Cerys would be able to breathe while positioned like that.
‘The midwife said that a baby would wriggle and pull their head back if they could not breathe properly during breastfeeding.
‘Other than answering my query about whether Cerys could breathe, I remember that the midwife did not give me any advice about breastfeeding.’
The midwife claims she advised Cerys’ mother that she should support the infant’s back and neck during feeding, but not to hold her too tightly and not to hold the back of her head.
She had no recollection of Mrs Geis-Clements ‘specifically asking her about the possibility of her baby not being able to breathe during feeding’, said John Whitting QC, for the NHS trust.
He said she would have explained the risks of holding the back of a baby’s head during feeding and that a child will not suffocate on the breast so long as it can move its head back.
Mrs Geis-Clements, he added, had been an ‘assiduous’ attender at pre-birth NCT classes, at which ‘safe breast feeding practice would have been covered in some detail’.
The cause of Cerys’ oxygen starvation was probably a ‘random post-natal sudden collapse’ which could not have been foreseen and in which negligence played no part, he told the court.
The hearing continues.