Mum of twins had rare condition

HAPPIER times . . . Richard and Janet

A FATHER who lost his partner within 12 hours of her giving birth to their twin daughters has spoken of the tragedy which robbed her of being part of their lives.

New mum Janet Hopson died when she became a one-in-50,000 victim of a rare complication of pregnancy.

The 39-year-old contracted pre-eclampsia, a fairly common condition in pregnancy, but it triggered the extraordinary chain of events that was to take her life.

Her partner Richard Sammons (37) said the inquest yesterday answered a lot of questions and let him draw a line under the tragic events.

He heard how rare the condition was from Peter Stewart, who was asked by coroner Simon Nelson for an independent report as a senior consultant obstetrician at Sheffield University Teaching Hospital.

Miss Hopson had suffered 11 heart attacks as a team of medics battled to save her life, struggling to stem a huge loss of blood but unable to find its source.

Mr Stewart said he had seen only one such case in 27 years as a consultant and more than 30 years as an obstetrician — and that woman had also died.

He said: “It is an incredibly rare condition of pregnancy which can’t be predicted, and we don’t know why it happens.

“Lots of women get pre-eclampsia during pregnancy, but only a minute proportion will develop an acute fatty liver, as Miss Hopson did.”

He said Janet had not displayed any of the warning signs to alert her carers in hospital to what was happening.

She was rushed to theatre for exploratory surgery after her blood pressure plummeted without explanation within hours of her twins being delivered six weeks early by Caesarean section.

Richard’s life was thrown into turmoil when he experienced the joy of the birth of twins Amelia and Alyssa and the horror of his partner’s death within 12 hours of each other in March, 2007.

He said after the hearing: “It’s difficult to put into words, but it’s a tragedy that Jan won’t see our twins grow up. She wanted them so much.

“It’s totally changed my life. It was hard at first but I couldn’t just sit and get depressed, I had two people to look after.

“I only work part-time because I made a conscious decision to spend as much time with them as possible until they go to school.

“I see a lot of Janet in Amelia, but Alyssa is more like me. Jan was loud and outgoing, and I’m more quiet and shy. We were opposites but we just hit it off.

“The twins are doing well. They are too young to know what has happened, but I’ll definitely be telling them all about their mother when they are old enough to understand.”

A post mortem examination revealed Miss Hopson died from shock due to blood loss from bleeding of internal organs, complicated by an acute fatty liver of pregnancy.

He said the case was the first he had seen during his 16 years as a pathologist.

Coroner Simon Nelson recorded a narrative verdict of death from a rare but recognised a naturally occurring complication of pregnancy.