Nurse accused of infanticide attempt by milk


The following is an excerpt from BBC.

A senior doctor has said he “can’t think of a natural cause” for a previously stable baby projectile vomiting and struggling to breathe, nurse Lucy Letby’s murder trial has heard.

Ms Letby is accused of attempting to murder the premature girl, referred to as Child G, three times at the Countess of Chester Hospital in September 2015.

The nurse is charged with murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others between 2015 and 2016.

Ms Letby, 32, denies 22 charges.

Dr Stephen Breary, who was the on-call consultant at the neonatal unit in early September 2015, said Child G had been “improving” and was “stable” on 6 September. 

But at 03:30 BST on 7 September, Dr Breary received an emergency call to attend the unit as the baby had a “very large projectile vomit” which “reached the chair next to the cot and canopy”.

“This was not something I had witnessed before,” Dr Breary said.

The prosecution alleges Ms Letby, of Hereford, overfed Child G with milk through a nasogastric tube or injected air into the same tube.

Medical expert Dr Dewi Evans, who was approached by the National Crime Agency to review the case in 2017, told the trial it was “astonishing” for such a small baby to vomit as severely as Child G did. 

He said: “For a baby of 2kg to vomit that far is quite remarkable. Even more astonishing is the vomit that ends up on the chair. That is several feet away. 

“I can’t recall a baby vomiting on the floor. I can’t recall a baby vomiting that distance. It was described quite correctly as extraordinary.”

Dr Evans told the court that there could only be one explanation for this, that Child G “had received far more milk” than the allocated 45mls down her feeding tube. 

He told the court that this “cannot occur accidently” and concluded that a member of staff had administered excess liquid with “intent to harm.” (Continued…)

Link to article here.


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2 thoughts on “Nurse accused of infanticide attempt by milk”

  1. I have to say, this doctor doesn’t have much experience if he never saw an infant with projectile vomiting. My son was born with pyloric stenosis which causes this. He needed surgery to fix it at just 3 weeks old. This is an uncommon but not especially rare condition. A relative’s baby was also born with it…projectile vomiting too, to several feet away. It’s a little scary to think this doctor was unfamiliar with it. I wouldn’t want him looking after my baby.

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