By Vanessa Allen and Andrew Levy
Last updated at 7:58 AM on 09th September 2009

Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.

Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early.

They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.

Enlarge   Sarah Capewell, mother of Jayden Capewell

Battle: Sarah Capewell is fighting to have guidelines about caring for very premature babies changed

Miss Capewell, 23, said doctors refused to even see her son Jayden, who lived for almost two hours without any medical support. 

She said he was breathing unaided, had a strong heartbeat and was even moving his arms and legs, but medics refused to admit him to a special care baby unit.

Miss Capewell is now fighting for a review of the medical guidelines. 

Sarah Capewell and her daughter Jodi

Heartbreak: Sarah Capewell with her daughter Jodi, five

Sarah Capewell is fighting for new guidelines on when infants should be given intensive care after her premature son Jayden (right) was refused treatment

Medics allegedly told her that they would have tried to save the baby if he had been born two days later, at 22 weeks.

In fact, the medical guidelines for Health Service hospitals state that babies should not be given intensive care if they are born at less than 23 weeks.

The guidance, drawn up by the Nuffield Council, is not compulsory but advises doctors that medical intervention for very premature children is not in the best interests of the baby, and is not 'standard practice'.

James Paget Hospital in Norfolk refused to comment on the case but said it was not responsible for setting the guidelines relating to premature births.

A trust spokesman said: 'Like other acute hospitals, we follow national guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine regarding premature births.'

Miss Capewell, who has had five miscarriages, said the guidelines had robbed her son of a chance of life.

James Paget Hospital

Short life: Miss Capewell's son Jayden died two hours after he was born at James Paget Hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk, in October 2008

She said: 'When he was born, he put out his arms and legs and pushed himself over.

A midwife said he was breathing and had a strong heartbeat, and described him as a "little fighter".

I kept asking for the doctors but the midwife said, "They won't come and help, sweetie. Make the best of the time you have with him".'

She cuddled her child and took precious photos of him, but he died in her arms less than two hours after his birth.

Miss Capewell, who has a five-year-old daughter Jodie, went into labour in October last year at 21 weeks and four days after suffering problems during her pregnancy.

She said she was told that because she had not reached 22 weeks, she was not allowed injections to try to stop the labour, or a steroid injection to help to strengthen her baby's lungs.

Instead, doctors told her to treat the labour as a miscarriage, not a birth, and to expect her baby to be born with serious deformities or even to be still-born.

Treasured memories: Pictures of baby Jason's feet and hands

She told how she begged one paediatrician, 'You have got to help', only for the man to respond: 'No we don't.'

As her contractions continued, a chaplain arrived at her bedside to discuss bereavement and planning a funeral, she claims.

She said: 'I was sitting there, reading this leaflet about planning a funeral and thinking, this is my baby, he isn't even born yet, let alone dead.'

After his death she even had to argue with hospital officials for her right to receive birth and death certificates, which meant she could give her son a proper funeral.

Justice for Jayden: His mother is campaigning to change the law

Justice for Jayden: His mother is campaigning to change the law

She was shocked to discover that another child, born in the U.S. at 21 weeks and six days into her mother's pregnancy, had survived.

Amillia Taylor was born in Florida in 2006 and celebrated her second birthday last October. She is the youngest premature baby to survive.

Miss Capewell said: 'I could not believe that one little girl, Amillia Taylor, is perfectly healthy after being born in Florida in 2006 at 21 weeks and six days.

'Thousands of women have experienced this. The doctors say the babies won't survive but how do they know if they are not giving them a chance?'

Miss Capewell has won the support of Labour MP Tony Wright, who has backed her call for a review of the medical guidelines. He said: 'When a woman wants to give the best chance to her baby, they should surely be afforded that opportunity.'

What the medical guidelines say...

Guidance limiting care of the most premature babies provoked outrage when it was published three years ago.

Experts on medical ethics advised doctors not to resuscitate babies born before 23 weeks in the womb, stating that it was not in the child's 'best interests'.

The guidelines said: 'If gestational age is certain and less than 23+0 (i.e at 22 weeks) it would be considered in the best interests of the baby, and standard practice, for resuscitation not to be carried out.'

Medical intervention would be given for a child born between 22 and 23 weeks only if the parents requested it and only after discussion about likely outcomes.

The rules were endorsed by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine and are followed by NHS hospitals.

The association said they were not meant to be a 'set of instructions', but doctors regard them as the best available advice on the treatment of premature babies.

More than 80,000 babies are born prematurely in Britain every year, and of those some 40,000 need to be treated in intensive care.

The NHS spends an estimated 1 billion a year on their care.

But while survival rates for those born after 24 weeks in the womb have risen significantly, the rates for those born earlier have barely changed, despite advances in medicine and technology.

Medical experts say babies born before 23 weeks are simply too under-developed to survive, and that to use aggressive treatment methods would only prolong their suffering, or inflict pain.

The guidelines were drawn up by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics after a two-year inquiry which took evidence from doctors, nurses and religious leaders.

But weeks before they were published in 2006, a child was born in the U.S. which proved a baby could survive at earlier than 22 weeks if it was given medical treatment.

Amillia Taylor was born in Florida on October 24, 2006, after just 21 weeks and six days in the womb. She celebrated her second birthday last year.

Doctors believed she was a week older and so gave her intensive care, but later admitted she would not have received treatment if they had known her true age.

Her birth also coincided with the debate in Britain over whether the abortion limit should be reduced.

Some argued that if a baby could survive at 22 weeks then the time limit on abortions should be reduced.

The argument, which was lost in Parliament, followed a cut to the time limit in 1990 when politicians reduced it from 28 weeks to 24 weeks, in line with scientific evidence that foetuses could survive outside the womb at a younger age.

However, experts say cases like Amillia Taylor's are rare, and can raise false expectations about survival rates.

Studies show that only 1 per cent of babies born before 23 weeks survive, and many suffer serious disabilities.

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below, or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have not been moderated.

It is not up to people to decide who lives or dies, it's up to God. So Jayden should have had all the life support available to him. If we are so advanced in technology to save a life, but we are so callous towards that life, what good is it? The mother and child need love and compassion, understanding and care. Wake up people, life is so precious, disabled, premature, or whatever. What did the Lord say? Love your neighbor as yourself, bring the little children to me, and do not hinder them..........let God make the decision after the doctors can do everthing possible. Maybe I'm out of touch because I do not witness how many abortions go on in that hospital every day at the hands of that doctor....................................it woud probably horrify me. sara

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to emmy14 of london. Good thing for you the rules allowed NHS to treat you. As far as the state of innovative medicine in GB one only has to go to WHO. that in their journal writes:
"In Canada, a similar study published in the 'British Medical Journal' rated barely five per cent of all newly-patented drugs approved by the Canadian Patented Medicines Prices Review Board as 'breakthrough'. Alarmingly, drugs classified as 'me-too', or having no added therapeutic benefit, were responsible for 80 per cent of the soaring rise in prescription costs witnessed in the country. This provides a telling illustration of the waste in a system that rewards innovations that present little or no therapeutic gain."

My guess is that if you were in the states it wouldn't have taken so many doctors to "cure" you. It only took one british physician to kill a young live child.

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My heart goes out to this woman and her family. What a heartbreaking story. I read it earlier and its played on my mind all day. Its taken me til now to write a comment. What can I say. I have signed the petition to 10 Downing Street and can just offer my support and sympathy to this lady who should never have gone through this awful ordeal. God bless you and little Jayden. Let's hope nobody else ever has to suffer this kind of treatment again.

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Rebecca--You do NOT understand me at all. It's likely my inability to articulate my position. Not sure how abortion came into the conversation but I strongly OPPOSE the willful termination of any pregnancy because I value human life. But that's an entirely different topic. THIS woman went into preterm labor because her body could not NATURALLY sustain the pregnancy. It's not MY "choice" whether or not the baby lives. It's called the reality of delivering an extremely premature baby who cannot physiologically adapt to extra-uterine life.
BTW fatherof2--you have no basis for your comment to me. I've witnessed a 12 oz., 24 week baby suffer through infections and multiple painful procedures only to develop a Grade IV hemorrhage and be taken off the ventilator (PARENT'S CHOICE) at 29 weeks? I took turns with three other nurses holding her until she died because the parents left in tears. When you've experienced that, perhaps then we can have a conversation.

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I am not a doctor but my wife had the exact same problems as this lady. My heart goes out to her. My wife carried our first son with alot of complacations but made it to about 35 weeks. With our next son the problems were worse and she had to have a constant dose of tributline to stop her labaring from around 20 weeks forward and she also had to have the steroid shot once a week. She was able to carry him into the 34 week and they are both very normal. The sad part of this story is that the Brits cant see that by giving this woman better treatment during the pregnice they could possibley have carried the children further so that they could have survived. In short My wife has the same problems but due to living in the US our children survived.

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This is what we will get with a govt. run healthcare that democrats want to force down our throats. Few doctors, 6 to 8 month wait to see a doctor, test denied if we are not the usual candidate for a certain desease. Socialist Govt. that decides when we should live or die.

Reagan said: "One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it."

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