MISDIAGNOSIS: How Mum Lost Unborn Twins After Nurse Sent Her Home With ‘Pulled Muscle’

A devastated mum, Nicola Jaffray, 32, and her partner, David Bielicki, have recounted how they lost their unborn twins days after a nurse sent her home saying her pain was only a ‘pulled muscle.’ It was discovered later that she was suffering from a serious medical condition and the pain, just below her right breast, was one of the babies in her rib cage. Her twin boys were stillborn at 25 weeks.

According to Mirror UK, Nicola’s husband, David, 36, said: “It has been a living nightmare. To be told and assured by a midwife that your babies are perfectly fine and then days later you are cradling them – lifeless, well it is devastating and hard to get your head around.”

The couple found out Nicola was pregnant in April this year but in July she started feeling pain in her ribs. She went to Middlesbrough’s James Cook University Hospital where she was assessed.

Nicola said: “It was like a spasm. It was really painful and my bump didn’t look right – it looked square. They tested my blood pressure and pulse and told me there were signs of a pulled muscle. She gave me some paracetamol and codeine and that was it. I thought it was too painful for a pulled muscle but they are they experts, not me.”

The pain continued for several days before Nicola said it became unbearable.

David said: “She couldn’t sleep and at one point she was curled up in a ball on the sofa. She was in a really bad way.”

She went back to the Maternity Assessment Unit where she was again told that she was suffering muscular pain and sent home without having a scan.

David said: “We kept saying it can’t just be that. She was in so much pain. I remember asking the midwife if my babies are OK. She looked me in the eye and said they were ‘perfectly fine’.”

The following day Nicola returned to the unit via ambulance due to the severe pain. As she was already due to have a ultra sound scan that day, she was taken for the scan. It was then that the devastating discovery was found that Nicola had contracted twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), a disease of the placenta which affects twin pregnancies.

She said: “It was found that I had TTTS and the pain I was suffering was the baby stuck in my rib. The doctor told us the risk of both babies dying was high. He said I could either have a C section where there was virtually no chance of them surviving or I could go to St George’s Hospital in London where I could have laser treatment. I opted for the treatment.”

Sadly Nicola didn’t get to have the treatment as both babies died before she got to the hospital. She said: “One baby died that night and the other died in the ambulance on the way down to London the next day.”

After an investigation, South Tees NHS Foundation Trust wrote to the heartbroken couple apologizing for the late diagnosis and admitted that Nicola should have had an ultrasound scan when she first complained about the pain.

The letter read in part:

“It is acknowledged that the diagnosis of TTTS could have been detected earlier than it was and it is possible that if Ms Jaffray had had an USS on July 22 when she first presented with abdominal pain, that some signs of TTTS could have been detected and transfer to the specialist centre for laser treatment could have been arranged sooner, although the outcome for the twins would still have been uncertain. We are extremely sorry that there were some shortcomings in the care that you received.”

It went on to say that “lessons have been learned” from the case which have been “immediately put in place”.

Nicola said: “We were angry when we read it. The word ‘shortcomings’ was hard to read. This was more than shortcoming. These were our babies and they were let down. I would never wish what happened to us to happen to anyone else, but them ‘learning from this’ does not bring our babies back. Losing your babies is hard enough to deal with but knowing that something could have been done to save them, is even harder. We feel like we were forgotten about.”

Nicola has three other children; Tiegan, 14, Owen, 11, and Trenton-Lee, 7.