On the 7th August 2006 we lost out beautiful baby girl Jemma Alice to an undiagnosed vasa previa.

     After a smooth pregnancy I was admitted to hospital at 37 weeks and 3 days with pre eclampsia. Initially they told me it was just for observation and they weren’t planning on inducing me, however after some blood tests my obstetrician decided that it would be better to go ahead and induce me. I was so excited, I rang my husband and told him to bring in Jemma’s bag and to put the car seat in the car and that by tomorrow we should have a little girl in our arms.

     I was induced at 6pm and told that I would most likely need another dose of the gel around midnight and then the doctor would be come in, in the morning and break my waters and that we can expect Jemma by lunch time. She was our first baby so I just followed what they said. Before they induced me I had an ultrasound which showed a beautiful healthy baby with a nice strong heart beat. Everything was set to go and at six o’clock as planned I was given my first dose of gel and hook up to the foetal monitor – again everything look perfect. I was having contraction every 2 minutes for a minute and was coping fine when all of a sudden I had one sharp pain and felt my waters break. I asked my husband to buzz for the midwife and I walked over to the toilet.

     When Monica (our midwife) came in to check me she noticed that the toilet was full of blood. Immediately she rushed me back to the bed and tried to find a heartbeat.  The doctor was called and our nice quiet birth suite and our lives were instantly turned upside down. Fortunately I was fully dilated and with the help of some forceps Jemma was born within about 10 minutes at 9.50pm. It all happened so quickly and everyone involved was absolutely devastated.

     We had a full autopsy done, which showed that Jemma was a perfect healthy baby and it was vasa previa that caused her death. She was 50cm long (tall like her daddy) and weighed 5Lb 8oz and looked just like a porcelain doll.

     Because I had such a smooth pregnancy with no bleeding etc there was supposedly no reason to do further scans. It breaks my heart to know that this could have been prevented. We love and miss her so much and still just can not believe that this has happened.

Meagan & Michael Newstead