'My baby died after I was ignored' - families call for NHS maternity inquiry

When Tassie Weaver went into labour at full term, she thought she was hours away from holding her first child. But by the time she was giving birth, she knew her son had died.

Doctors had previously told Tassie to call her local maternity unit immediately, she says, as she was considered high risk and needed monitoring, due to high blood pressure and concerns about the baby's growth. But a midwife told her to stay at home.

Three hours later she called again, worried because now she couldn't feel her baby moving. Again, she was told to stay at home, the same midwife saying that this was normal because women can be too distracted by their contractions to feel anything else.

"I was treated as just a kind of hysterical woman in pain who doesn't know what's going on because it's their first pregnancy," the 39-year-old tells us.

When she called a third time, a different midwife told her to come to hospital, but when she arrived it was too late. His heart had stopped beating.

Tassie and her husband John believe Baxter's stillbirth at the Leeds General Infirmary (LGI), four years ago, could have been prevented - and a review by the trust identified care issues "likely to have made a difference to the outcome".

The couple are among 47 new families who have contacted the BBC with concerns about inadequate maternity care at Leeds Teaching Hospitals (LTH) NHS Trust between 2017 and 2024.

As well as the new families, three new whistleblowers - two who still work for the trust - have shared concerns about the standard of care at its two maternity units - at the LGI and St James' University Hospital. This is in addition to the two we spoke to in the initial BBC investigation.

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Source: BBC News, 17 June 2025