After an internal investigation, the Mont-de-Marsan hospital center (Landes) recognized an internal “dysfunction” after the death in early October of an infant a few days after birth, due to lack of care for an undetected infection in the future mother.
In a press release published Thursday evening, the management of the center specifies that the little girl was born “in difficult conditions” on October 6 at the Mother and Child center of the hospital and that she died four days later, despite being transferred to the Bordeaux University Hospital.
An internal evaluation commissioned by the management of the Landes establishment noted “a malfunction in the traceability and in the reporting of information in the patient file”, explains the hospital. The team in place on the day of the birth could not “identify the mother as carrying a type B streptococcus bacteria”, for lack of information in her file, he adds.
“Corrective measures” put in place
At the end of pregnancy, a screening is carried out to find out if the future mother is a carrier of the germ, in her vaginal flora, without consequence for the adult carrier but which may prove to be dangerous for the newborn at the time of delivery.
If infected during pregnancy, carriers are treated with antibiotics during childbirth to reduce the risk of infecting the child. “It would seem at first sight that there was no transfer of information between two files”, that of the patient and that of the maternity, explains to AFP a source close to the file.
“As of now, corrective measures concerning traceability and the alert chain have already been implemented in order to avoid any similar situation”, specifies the hospital, whose maternity unit provides more than 1,200 births each year. “All the elements” were sent to the Nouvelle-Aquitaine regional health agency, continues the hospital center, which offered parents “adapted support”.