A Nottingham woman said she thought she was going to die after losing two litres of blood during a miscarriage. Annie Steiger, of New Basford, described experiencing "gushing" and "streaming" bleeding while she was 11 weeks pregnant.
"I've never seen anything like it - I lost so much blood," the 28-year-old recalled. "I was screaming and it was gushing out of me."
Ms Steiger, a customer care adviser, said she had been let down by Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham, claiming she was not given any advice on what to prepare for after doctors were unable to locate the heartbeat of her baby. "There wasn't any information given to us and that's the issue," said her partner Chris Lough, of Sherwood Rise. Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) said it offered its condolences to the couple.
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The pair visited QMC on January 16 due to Ms Steiger experiencing slight bleeding. "I was told I didn't need a scan but I was quite adamant, I said 'no I want a scan'," she told Nottinghamshire Live. After a scan, she was told the baby was at the size it should be at five weeks instead of 11, and doctors could not find a heartbeat.
"I didn't want to go through the trauma of having it in my body - I wanted it removed," she added. However, medics said they could not remove the baby as they "wanted to give the pregnancy another chance", said Ms Steiger, who was told she would have to wait a week for another scan.
Mr Lough, 45, added that there was "no illusion to miscarriage" with a lot of "blanks left to be filled" before they were sent home. In a statement issued to Nottinghamshire Live, NUH said a re-scan was required to diagnose the miscarriage and to minimise the risk of a false-positive diagnosis of a miscarriage.
However Ms Steiger said they were given little information. "He didn't tell us what to look out for, what does a miscarriage even look like? We thought it was just a big amount of blood but we had no idea when we would need to go to hospital and how much blood was normal.
"We were left with absolutely no idea what was going to happen." Two days later, she said she experienced some bleeding that she assumed was the miscarriage. It was on a trip to visit in-laws in Scotland that she began to bleed uncontrollably.
She recalled: "At 3am on Saturday I started feeling extreme cramping. I woke up and went to the toilet and there was just blood.
"There was blood clot after blood clot, I was dripping blood and it wouldn't stop. Both me and my partner didn't know what was happening."
Mr Lough drove his partner 40 minutes to the nearest hospital, the Borders General. "It was an unreal amount of blood," Ms Steiger said.
Despite getting medical attention she continued to lose blood. "I lost about two litres," she added. "I started to faint and seizure, even just when sat down I was passing out and fitting - I thought I was dying."
Ms Steiger then underwent surgery to remove the baby. "If I'd had stayed at my partner's house I would have definitely bled to death," she said. "If they (QMC) would've booked me in that week when I requested then none of that would've happened and I wouldn't have had to go through the trauma of losing two litres of blood and giving birth to blood clots.
"QMC really let us down and didn't give us much information about what was happening. People need to have clear guidance."
Mr Lough added: "There's a lot of blanks that weren't made clear at all. We went away not knowing what the hell was going on.
"It's about making others aware - if you're a single mother having to go through that it'd be an absolute nightmare. I understand this is not a standard miscarriage but these things will happen. It's been the worst few days of our lives."
A spokesperson at NUH said: “The loss of a baby at any stage is devastating. We would like to offer our condolences to the family during this difficult time and we would encourage them to contact our PALS team by calling 0800 183 0204 or email PALS@nuh.nhs.uk, so we can go through their concerns.”
Maternity services across QMC and City Hospital are currently subject to a review after dozens of cases of harm and baby deaths. Anyone who has been affected can contact the review at nottsreview@donnaockenden.com
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