Apology over baby scan errors

A hospital has apologised to two pregnant women after wrongly telling them that their unborn babies were dead.

Sofia Taylor and Joanna Barro were given the erroneous news when they went for scans at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. Brighton and Sussex University Hospital NHS Trust apologised and assured other mothers-to-be that they were implementing new safeguards to ensure the same error will not occur again.

Ms Taylor, 22, refused to accept her baby was dead following a scan at nine weeks in August. A second scan showed her pregnancy was progressing normally. Her case followed that of Joanna Barro, 25, who was told in August 2007 that doctors could not detect a foetal heartbeat when she went for a scan . She returned for a follow-up scan a week later, where she learnt that there was in fact a heartbeat.

Ms Barro, from Peacehaven, East Sussex, went on to give birth seven months later to a girl called Ruby.