The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

A MOTHER alleges that doctors at Fleming Street Clinic never told her anything was wrong with her unborn daughter, only for her to learn from a radiologist when she was eight months pregnant that the baby's lungs were filled with fluid and her limbs were deformed.

Twelve minutes after Lakesha Fowler first held her newborn, Blessing, on March 5, doctors told her the baby was dead.

Ms Fowler, 28, said she later confronted the clinic doctors, who apologised to her.

Ms Fowler found out she was pregnant in July last year and was due to give birth in April. She began attending Fleming Street Clinic in September 2025 and continued until she was eight months pregnant. She said she had used other public clinics for her two older daughters without any problems.

At her appointments, she said, staff checked her vital signs, her urine and the baby’s heart rate, and measured her abdomen, and the doctor asked about her wellbeing. Apart from occasional pain in her back and under her stomach, she said, the pregnancy appeared to be going well.

She had three ultrasounds at Fourth Terrace Diagnostic Centre, at about three months, in November and in February, and two at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH). She said she was told the radiologist would send her scans to her clinic doctors, who would brief her on the results.

“The only feedback I got,” Ms Fowler said, “was that the baby’s heart rate is fine. It’s where it’s supposed to be, and she is growing.”

That changed on February 19, during her third scan at Fourth Terrace. Ms Fowler said she noticed the radiologist’s face become worried. She repeatedly asked why he looked concerned and became upset when he would not tell her what was wrong, so she asked for his boss.

A senior radiologist took over the scan and asked whether her doctors had briefed her about the baby’s health. She said he then explained that her daughter’s lungs were filled with fluid, that she had a narrow rib cage and deformed limbs, and that her belly measured as if she was ten months pregnant instead of eight.

She was told to follow up urgently with her clinic doctor. When she got to the clinic, she said, the doctors had already left for the day, and she was sent to PMH.

“When I went up to the hospital, and the midwives read my ultrasound, everybody’s face dropped as in to say, miss, if you know this was going on with your baby, why you carry your baby full term? Like why you didn’t abort your baby.”

She was referred to the speciality clinic at PMH, where doctors gave her three steroid injections over three days to try to build up the baby’s lungs. She was admitted to hospital for about a week before giving birth.

Ms Fowler described the labour as traumatic. She said she was not allowed medication because it was a high-risk pregnancy. She alleged that doctors went back and forth over whether she should have a Caesarean section before deciding a natural birth was safest.

She held Blessing once before the baby died.

“It was a heart-wrenching feeling because she was still warm,” Ms Fowler said.

She said she felt as though she was in a bad dream and could not wake up. The day after giving birth, she had to make funeral arrangements because her daughter’s body had to be removed from the morgue.

Ms Fowler said her days are now filled with anxiety attacks, crying spells and replaying the moment her daughter died. She recently moved Blessing’s baby items into a storage room because she could not bear to see them every day.

“I don’t have the strength to give her things away because it’s hurtful,” she said.

She wants more children one day but is terrified of losing another. Her relationship with her fiancé has suffered intimately, she said, because she fears that if she has sex, she could become pregnant and go through the same experience again.

Her daughters, aged nine and five, are also struggling. The youngest constantly asks where Blessing is because she does not understand that her sister has died. The eldest often says, “Blessing is in Heaven.”