Heartbroken Mum Says Baby Born at 22 Weeks Was “Left to Die” After Alleged Due Date Error
A grieving mother has claimed her premature baby was denied life-saving treatment after doctors allegedly miscalculated how far along she was in her pregnancy.
Sophie Dennis was almost 23 weeks pregnant when she went into labour on October 16. Her pregnancy had already been considered high risk due to a haematoma — a collection of blood clots in the uterine tissue — which ultimately triggered early labour.

When her daughter, Autumn Orion Dennis, was born at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, Sophie says she was told there was nothing medical staff could do because the baby was not considered “viable.”
In the UK, 24 weeks is widely recognised as the legal threshold of viability and also marks the upper limit for abortion. Guidance from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists states that births before 24 weeks present profound medical and ethical challenges due to extremely low survival rates. Active treatment is generally agreed upon after 25 weeks.
Sophie, 33, believes she was 22 weeks and six days pregnant when Autumn was delivered, weighing just 410 grams — less than a bag of sugar. However, doctors calculated the gestation at 22 weeks and two days. She also claims her maternity notes mistakenly recorded her as being 22 weeks and one day pregnant.
She believes that discrepancy influenced the decision not to attempt resuscitation.
“I now know we could have had a neonatal team on standby if I had pushed harder,” Sophie said. “I’ll always live with the ‘what if.’ What if I had begged them to intervene? Would she still be here? I don’t know if she would have survived — but at least we would have tried.”
Sophie had been at home in Heaton, Newcastle, celebrating her son’s first birthday when labour began.
“I felt more pain than normal pregnancy aches,” she recalled. “Then I passed the haematoma, and I remember thinking, ‘Am I about to lose this baby?’”
Although she and her husband asked what could be done, they say they were left with no option but to accept that their daughter would not receive medical intervention. After delivery, they spent two hours holding Autumn as she lived and breathed in her mother’s arms.
“I was in complete shock,” Sophie said. “It didn’t feel like we had the chance to fight for her.”
She described holding her daughter skin-to-skin, feeling her tiny heartbeat.
“She fought from the very beginning,” Sophie said. “We couldn’t do anything except keep her warm, tell her we loved her, and be strong for her until she passed away. In that moment, our hearts broke all over again.”
She added: “A piece of my heart left with her that night — but she left a piece of hers with me too.”
Since her loss, Sophie has launched a petition calling for babies born alive at 22 weeks to be given the same consideration for treatment as those born after the current legal viability threshold. The petition has gathered more than 15,000 signatures.
“She was a human being,” Sophie said. “She had rights, and so did we as her parents. But those choices were taken away from us.”

She says she later learned that some hospitals have provided active care to babies born at 23 weeks.
“Autumn was just one day shy of that,” she said. “To find out we had the right to request a neonatal team — that we could have asked for intervention — is devastating. No one can predict which babies will survive. They’re all individuals. But she deserved the chance.”
A spokesperson for Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust expressed sympathy for the family but declined to comment on specific details.
“Our thoughts are with Mrs Dennis and her family at this very difficult time,” the spokesperson said. “Patient confidentiality prevents us from discussing individual cases. Decisions regarding extremely premature births are made following careful and detailed consideration of many factors unique to each family.”
For Sophie, however, the pain remains.
“I will always wonder what might have been,” she said.