A heartbroken couple have revealed how they aborted their healthy baby after mistakenly being told by NHS doctors that their newborn would have a serious genetic condition.
Carly Wesson said she ended her pregnancy at 14 weeks in January 2019 after doctors at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUHT) said her baby had a rare disorder.
Ms Wesson, 43, and her partner Carl Everson were told their unborn child had Patau’s Syndrome, a condition which often results in a miscarriage, stillbirth or the baby dying shortly after birth.
Explaining how they made the ‘impossible choice’, Ms Wesson said doctors informed her that there was a high chance her daughter would not survive the pregnancy and would be left with severe care needs.
When they asked doctors if the more detailed analysis due two weeks after they made the fateful decision would give a different result, the couple were told it was unlikely to.
‘We thought the best option was to end the pregnancy because the baby was suffering’, Ms Wesson told the BBC.
But six weeks after aborting what would have been their first child, which they nicknamed Ladybird, they were informed that she had no abnormality and that the first test result had been a false positive.
Ms Wesson added that, in an apparent attempt to placate the couple, a doctor told her she would have ‘likely miscarried anyway’.
Carly Wesson and her partner Carl Everson decided to abort their baby after they were wrongly informed by doctors that it had Patau’s Syndrome – a rare genetic disorder which commonly results in a miscarriage, stillbirth or death shortly after birth
The couple were told erroneously their daughter, nicknamed ‘Ladybird’, would unlikely survive the pregnancy
Another set of would-be parents were given less than a day by doctors to decide on whether to abort their baby, after being incorrectly informed it had a life-limiting illness.
The family, who remain anonymous, were informed by the same NHS Trust 20 weeks into their pregnancy of the possibility of some abnormal development before being told their baby likely had a genetic condition.
Due to legal restrictions prohibiting abortions after 24 weeks, the family were forced to end the pregnancy before receiving results of test to see whether they too were carriers.
The mother said her baby was ‘kicking inside me’ as she pressed doctors for the test results, and ended up having a termination surrounded by other parents giving birth to healthy babies.
A post-mortem found that the baby did not have the condition. The parents say the trust never provided them with explanation for the false diagnosis.
For other families, false information has meant they were nearly denied being able to welcome their babies into the world after doctors’ warnings led them to brink of an abortion.
One anonymous mother, who had previously experienced a stillbirth, almost aborted her son in 2015 after she was advised by doctors that he likely had a life-limiting disease.
A scan showing ‘a large black hole in the middle’, appeared to show the baby was struggling to empty his bladder.
‘I really remember us then telling friends, not with a happy, joyful, ‘guess what, we’re pregnant’. It was more of a ‘we’re having another baby and it’s going to die’, the mother said.
A second scan appeared to show the condition had worsened with an even larger black shape.
But the couple were saved from the brink of terminating the birth, when a third scan came back normal.
The family say they were never explained the cause of the erroneous scan results.
An investigation into the treatment received by over 2,000 families at two Nottingham hospitals, including City Hospital (pictured), is underway
An investigation into the treatment received by more than 2,000 families at two hospitals run by NUHT, the Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital, is being conducted by senior midwife Donna Ockenden, including a review of their antenatal care. It is expected to report back in 2026.
A separate police inquiry is also underway.
NUHT said its foetal medicine teams support hundreds of parents from across the East Midlands each year.
Its CEO Anthony May said: ‘For women and families using this service, there will be times when they are faced with making very difficult and long-lasting decisions.
‘We strive to support them to do that in the most compassionate and professional manner and we always want to hear from families who don’t feel their experience matches that ambition.’
