Missed contraceptive coil left woman unable to have children

A woman was denied the chance to have children with her husband after a contraceptive coil was accidentally left in place for 29 years.

Jayne Huddleston, from Crewe, had eight rounds of fertility treatment she did not need because the correct checks were not carried out by her doctor.

She said the mistake happened in 1990.

"The GP said it couldn't be seen, so I was sent for a scan and the scan didn't pick anything up, the GP recommended another coil was fitted," she told the BBC.

She was told the coil she had fitted around a year earlier had probably fallen out.

When she and her husband, David, then decided they wanted to have a child, the second coil was removed, but the first coil, which had gone undetected, remained inside her.

They tried for years to have a baby, with no success, including IVF treatment which cost them thousands of pounds.

The mistake was only discovered when she went for an X-ray in 2019 after complaining of back pain and the original coil was revealed.

Mr and Mrs Huddleston were awarded a six-figure out of court settlement after taking their case to Irwin Mitchell solicitors.

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Source: BBC News, 16 March 2023