An on-call consultant said she may have held off delivering a premature baby after reviewing fetal heart rate scans, an inquest has heard.

Kobi Wright, died on Sunday, March 3, 2019, at the James Paget University Hospital (JPUH) in Gorleston, at 34 weeks following a complicated delivery involving forceps which was abandoned for an emergency Caesarean-section.

His mother, Tracey Goode, had arrived in the JPUH delivery suite in the evening of March 1 after her waters broke.

When he was born, at around 3.30pm, medical staff attempted to resuscitate him for 20 minutes before he was pronounced dead.

Giving evidence at day two of the inquest on July 8, Tamanrit Johal, consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology, was 15 minutes drive from the JPUH when she received the call from the weekend registrar Dr Fakher Gendy just before 2pm saying he wanted to deliver Kobi.

He raised concerns about the baby’s heart rate, measured by a CTG monitor, and said it was variable and slowing down, according to Miss Johal.

She said: “I was told clearly there were concerns with the CTG scan which was the basis of deciding to deliver at that time.”

Because she was not at the hospital she did not see the heart rate graphs but relied on the knowledge of Dr Gendy, who has more than 30 years experience in obstetrics and gynaecology.

Miss Johal offered to come into the hospital to assist the delivery but Dr Gendy said he felt “confident”, the inquest heard.

She added: “Retrospectively, it is clear to me the CTG was not abnormal. The reason to suggest delivery was because of the CTG but if it was normal it would have been appropriate to wait another hour to see if the oxytocin hormone drip would progress.”

The drip speeds up labour and was given to Ms Goode just after 7.30am on March 3.

MORE: Inquest starts into the death of newborn babyThe consultant, who saw Ms Goode on her ward round on March 2 and knew she was considered a high risk pregnancy, added that the hospital trust was working on sharing images from CTG scans.

She received an urgent call just after 3pm to help theatre staff with Kobi’s delivery and arrived at 3.15pm.

Dr Gendy said he called Miss Johal about initiating delivery based on other concerns, not the CTG, including the hours that had gone by since Ms Goode’s waters had broken and her high risk pregnancy, the inquest heard.

The inquest continues.