A BUNGLING midwife put the lives of two newborn babies in danger after failing to react when their heartbeats dropped during delivery, a hearing heard.

Fatima Mohammed Cole, 54, failed to call a doctor or set up extra heart monitors despite recording a deceleration in their pulses, the Nursing and Midwifery Council was told.

She also got a new-born tot’s sex confused and sent a new mother home when she was suffering from a tear that needed a urgent medical treatment.

Cole, who was employed by East Lancashire NHS Trust and delivered babies at Burnley General and the Royal Blackburn Hospital, is attending a misconduct hearing in London and faces being thrown out of her profession.

Adrianna McDonnell, for the NMC, said that in April 2004 a baby was delivered by caesarian following a failed delivery.

The baby was admitted to the neonatal unit and remained poorly with a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain.

She said: “The care of the mother in labour was satisfactory until 3.10am when deceleration of the baby's heartbeat was recorded on the partogram.

“This is abnormal and one would expect to hear that a relevant doctor had been called, but on this occasion, what action was taken by Cole is not recorded or known.”

Mrs McDonnell said that Cole did not record further decelerations of the baby’s heart rate. When a registrar became involved, they made the decision to deliver.

The panel heard six months later, Cole again failed to take action when a second baby's heartbeat dropped significantly during labour.

Mrs McDonnell told the panel: “Cole had recorded abnormal heart patterns for nearly two hours and did not follow any guidelines or take action.”

The panel also heard that Cole, who registered as a midwife in 1977, ignored a patient's desperate pleas to stop as she tried to carry out a vaginal examination without consent.

In November the following year, Cole was on duty at Burnley General Hospital and told midwife Margaret Quinn that she thought a premature baby who was slightly jaundiced should be allowed to return home.

The baby was suffering from severe jaundice’ and should not have been discharged, the hearing was told.

Less than a month later, the panel heard, a patient who had given birth under the care of Cole returned to Burnley General Hospital on Christmas Eve for emergency surgery for a tear she had suffered.

Mrs McDonnell added: “Cole had not sutured the tear at the time but it definitely would have been needed and in fact should have been repaired in theatre under a spinal or general anaesthetic.”

Mrs McDonnell told the panel that Cole also recorded the wrong sex of a newborn baby in a patient's labour notes.

Cole, from Blackburn, admits failing to accurately record the sex of a newborn baby, failing to identify a third degree perineal tear and failing to set up a foetal heart monitor after recording abnormal heart patterns.

She denies trying to carry out a vaginal examination without the consent of the patient, failing to recognise severe jaundice and failing to interpret and report deviations on the partogram.

Proceeding.