A NEWBORN baby died of catastrophic organ failure and brain damage after a midwife failed to monitor vital signs during a high-risk labour, a tribunal heard.

Helen Mary Ryder, 48, admitted she failed to monitor the unborn baby’s heart rate during the birth at Banbury’s Horton Hospital maternity unit.

The boy, called Freddy, was ‘floppy’ when he was born and died the next day after the parents asked for his life support machine to be turned off.

His mother wept as she told the hearing: “My husband and I decided it was only fair to ask the doctors not to prolong his suffering.”

Freddy died in her arms around six hours later, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, in London, heard yesterday.

The mother said the midwife did not listen to the foetal heart rate at all, only took her blood pressure once, and did not appear to make notes of any of her observations.

The couple were taken to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital where Freddy had been moved to the intensive care unit, but were told there was probably no brain activity at all.

Ryder, from Banbury, accepted failures in monitoring the baby’s heart rate, measuring the mother’s blood pressure, and not adequately measuring her temperature.

The nurse also admitted that she ‘inappropriately’ gave the mother a dose of the drug Syntometrine.

The hearing continues.