When a baby is stillborn, hospitals have to do more than just look after grieving parents. They’re supposed to look into what happened. This isn’t about blaming anyone—it’s about working out why the baby died, whether the care was good enough, and what might help stop it happening to someone else.
Not every stillbirth means someone messed up. Lots of babies die even when the care has been really good. But the only way to know for sure is to properly look at what happened.
The Death Review Process
Every stillbirth should trigger a review. This is where hospital staff who weren’t involved in looking after that mum look at what happened during the pregnancy and birth. They read through all the notes, talk to the midwives and doctors who were there, and work out if the care was what it should have been.
This should happen pretty soon after the baby dies, while people still remember things clearly. Parents should be told it’s happening and get a chance to say what they remember. Often parents notice things that never got written in the notes or remember events differently to how they’re recorded.
Examining the Baby
Hospitals will offer parents the option of having their baby examined to help work out why they died. It’s a horrible thing to have to think about when you’ve just lost your child, but it often gives answers that wouldn’t be found any other way.
A full examination looks at the baby’s body and organs carefully. It can find infections, problems with how the baby developed, or signs the baby wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Often it’s the only way to get a proper answer about what caused the death.
Parents can say no to this, and nobody will force them. But hospitals should explain what they might not find out without it and give families proper time to think about it. Some parents later wish they’d said yes when questions about their baby’s death never get answered.
There are gentler options too, like scans or less detailed examinations, which some families find easier to accept while still finding out useful information.
Looking at the Placenta
The placenta should always get examined after stillbirth. Problems with the placenta are behind a high number of baby deaths, so looking at it carefully often explains what went wrong.
Looking at the placenta can show infections, blood clots, poor blood flow, whether it came away from the womb wall, or problems with how it developed. This helps explain why the baby died and whether the problem happened suddenly or had been building up.
Sometimes examining the placenta finds things that scans during pregnancy didn’t pick up. This might mean more scans could have spotted the problem earlier, or it might show the problem wouldn’t have shown up even with loads of extra checks.
Looking at Pregnancy Care
The hospital needs to look at all the care during pregnancy. That means checking when appointments were, what monitoring happened, whether anyone raised worries and what was done about them, and whether everything followed the rules it should have.
They should ask whether the pregnancy was checked properly for things that could go wrong, whether warning signs got missed or ignored, and whether there was enough monitoring based on any risks. It’s about what was done and what should have been done but wasn’t.
For families worried about their care, looking into a Stillbirth Claim means getting medical experts who don’t work for that hospital to look at whether the monitoring and response to warning signs was actually good enough.
Looking at Labour and Birth
If the baby died during labour or just before birth, what happened during labour needs a close look. This includes checking how the baby’s heartbeat was watched, when decisions got made, whether there were enough staff around, and how well everyone talked to each other.
They should work out whether signs the baby was struggling were spotted and dealt with fast enough, whether decisions about delivery happened when they should have, and whether staff responded to problems properly. They should also check whether the staff knew what they were doing and whether more experienced doctors were there when needed.
Sometimes these reviews find warning signs were there but nobody spotted them or acted quickly enough. Other times they show things went bad so fast that even perfect care couldn’t have stopped what happened.
When People Don’t Talk to Each Other Properly
Lots of hospital problems happen because people don’t pass information on properly rather than because one person made a mistake. The review should look at how information got shared between different staff during pregnancy and birth.
Did worries from community midwives get told to hospital staff? When shifts changed, did the new staff get told everything important? If mum’s condition changed or there were worries about baby, did the right people find out? Were doctors and midwives both clear about how risky things were and what needed watching?
These problems can be harder to spot than one person’s mistake, but fixing them matters more because it helps lots of patients going forward.
Checking Risk Factors
The review should think about everything that might have made things riskier—mum’s health, problems in earlier pregnancies, things like smoking, and what life was like at home. They should check whether these risks were spotted and whether care changed to deal with them.
Sometimes reviews find risks weren’t written down properly or nobody really thought about them when planning care. Other times they show the risks were spotted but nothing much changed in response.
Digging Deeper
When care problems are found, hospitals should dig into why things went wrong, not just what went wrong. This looks past what people did to think about whether the way the hospital works, how staff get trained, or whether there’s enough staff and equipment played a part.
This asks why things happened rather than whose fault it was. It works out whether this was just one mistake or part of bigger problems with how the hospital runs that need fixing.
What Parents Should Be Told
Families should get clear, honest information about what the review found. That means what likely killed their baby, whether any of the care could have been better, and what the hospital is changing because of what happened.
This needs to happen reasonably soon, with chances for parents to ask questions and get answers they can understand. Parents should get it in writing as well as being able to sit down with someone and talk it through.
Parents need to know if the review found problems with their care. The hospital should be honest about anything that wasn’t right and explain what they’re doing to stop it happening again.
When It Doesn’t Feel Right
Sometimes families feel the hospital hasn’t really looked properly at what happened or has brushed over problems. When hospitals look into their own care, they’re obviously not going to be completely fair.
When this happens, parents can complain to the hospital, ask for another look, or get their own medical and legal experts to check what happened. Having people who don’t work for that hospital review the care can give a fairer picture of whether it was good enough.
Learning Something from Loss
The whole point of looking into these deaths is stopping other families losing their babies the same way. When hospitals really look properly and honestly, and actually change things based on what they find, at least something can come from losing a baby.
Parents deserve to know their baby’s death was taken seriously, looked at properly, and led to changes that might save other babies. Nothing makes losing a child any easier, but for lots of families, understanding what happened and knowing something changed because of it matters a lot.
