Lauren Allum Suffered Serious Injuries at Birth

Medical Negligence During Childbirth Left Lauren with Cerebral Palsy

“…whatever lies ahead I know that Lauren will have a better quality of life thanks to our lawyers.” Elaine Allum, Mother of Lauren

“I’d had a normal pregnancy. But my delivery was at a new hospital that had only been open 2 days.

When I arrived the midwife couldn’t examine me as they didn’t have all the equipment – she didn’t take my blood pressure or monitor the baby.

There seemed a lot of confusion and it was about an hour and a half before I was attended to.

The second Lauren was born it was evident something was very wrong.

She looked grey and she was so still and quite it was obvious immediately that there was a problem.

Later, my husband, Ian, and I were taken up to a Special Care Unit to see Lauren.

She was covered in tubes and wires and on a ventilator.

About 2 weeks later we were told by the doctor in the Special Care Baby Unit that Lauren had suffered birth asphyxia and, because she had had fits within the first 48 hours of her birth, she was likely to have moderate to severe brain damage.

But for the first year and a half, we hoped and hoped everything was ok – until we couldn’t any longer ignore the reality that something was seriously wrong.

We also realised we didn’t know what to do and that we needed help, particularly legal advice.

The lawyer we met was very impressive, very knowledgeable.

We were completely new to anything like this and it mattered to us that he really listened to us first.

Then he explained that a key weakness of our making a claim for negligence surrounding Lauren’s birth was that the traces, the print out record of Lauren’s heartbeat for that period, had vanished.

Without these, he said bringing a case for medical negligence was going to be far harder – it would take a very long time to prepare and be much more complex.

Having made clear that this was going to be a tough case, our team of lawyers then did everything they could to keep pushing it along.

They had to get much more information to make up for the missing traces.

Indeed nobody had even actually diagnosed Lauren as suffering from cerebral palsy until 6 years after her birth and that was because our lawyers arranged for us to see a consultant paediatrician as part of the preparation for our legal claim.

Our team of lawyers never faltered during all that time – they kept driving things forward.

And they always kept us in the picture, updating us promptly.

All along, I felt they actually cared about Lauren and her future.

Their experience and connections were a great help, too.

Today, whatever lies ahead I know that Lauren will have a better quality of life thanks to our team of lawyers.”

Elaine Allum, Mother of Lauren

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