A baby suffered brain damage during a difficult caesarean delivery at Bradford Royal Infirmary, an inquest heard.

Mohammed Esaa Rashid, of Rhodesway, Bradford, died three days later on June 29 last year from multi-organ failure and brain injury.

Neonatologist Dr Chris Day told the hearing in Bradford yesterday Mohammed was already “a very unwell young man” because of the brain damage but had gone on to haemorrage after an attempt to intubate him had damaged his umbilical artery.

He had also developed a blood-clotting problem, suffering catastrophic blood loss and needing a transfusion.

“We made it worse,” he said referring to the artery being damaged.

Dr Day said if such bleeding is discovered early, the damaged part of the artery can be tied off and repaired.

But when asked if Mohammed would have survived if that had been able to happen in his case, he replied: “I don't know which would have been the outcome.”

He said he did not know if Mohammed, who was a twin, would in any case have managed to survive his brain injury which had affected his liver and kidney function and said even if he had lived he would likely have had problems with communication, understanding and movement.

Dr Day said: “Even before the bleeding Mohammed was a very, very unwell young man.”

An investigation into what happened was carried out by the hospital and Dr Day said as a lesson learned he would now be promoting awareness of looking out for the risk of bleeding from putting in umbilical lines.

He said: “I'm going to be promoting if you have any concern after arterial intubation that there's unexplained blood loss then an ultrasound is the investigation needed.”

He added: “This is really quite a rare complication of a procedure carried out really quite often.”

Mohammed's birth had been a planned caesarean because his mother's two previous births had also been sections.

However, she was admitted at 34 weeks when her waters broke and it was only when the surgeon began the operation and made the incision that he discovered scarring from the previous operations and fibroids that made the delivery difficult and delayed.

The inquest was adjourned until Monday.