'Everything was perfectly fine, up to the last day'

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- The death certificate lists the age of Geoff and Amrita Patterson's daughter as 32 minutes.

The baby girl, who would have been the couple's first child, was born not breathing at 5:46 p.m. on May 7. An autopsy later found that Group B streptococcus had invaded Amrita's womb, causing a massive infection that invaded the amniotic sac. The baby died of sepsis from an infection of the placenta.

The Pattersons had known that Amrita had tested positive for Group B strep; she went through the recommended screening in her 36th week of pregnancy.

Amrita went into labor early in the morning of May 6, late in the 40th week of her pregnancy. "I woke up that morning at 1 a.m. with severe back pains," said 37-year-old Amrita, who's a crime lab technician.

A few hours later, she was in labor, so Geoff, a 41-year-old optometrist, rushed her to the hospital.

Amrita was in labor all day long. She was given the proper antibiotics for a woman who is Group B strep-positive.

Something was not right, however. The baby's heart rate fell a couple of times.

"Around 4 p.m., it dropped, and all of the medical personnel came rushing into the room," Amrita said. "I was trying to do a natural childbirth. They told me I should think about getting an epidural because if the heart rate dropped again, they would have to give me a C-section."

About an hour later, the baby's heart rate fell again, and the doctors decided to perform an emergency C-section.

"When they pulled the baby out, she wasn't breathing," Amrita said.

"The first thing I heard them say was get the crash cart. I looked over and saw they were doing CPR on our baby," Geoff said. At first, he thought it might be a normal thing, part of the usual treatment for a premature birth.

But after a half hour, a doctor came to tell him that the baby's heart would not start, despite four shots of adrenaline and constant CPR.

The loss was a terrible one for the Pattersons, who were starting a family late in life and aren't certain of their chances to try again for a healthy child.

"We're both devastated," Geoff said. "My wife is taking it very hard. This is our first child. What makes it harder for us is that everything was perfectly fine, the baby was perfectly healthy, up to the last day."

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