A MOTHER who died in a maternity ward just days after giving birth to her second child may have fallen victim to a rare genetic condition, a coroner’s court heard. 

Building society manager Jane Whiteside, 41, had been preparing to go home with her baby son Ben when she was found unresponsive in a chair in a side room at Burnley General Hospital.

Despite efforts to resuscitate her, the former Great Harwood Guide leader was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

One of Europe’s leading pathologists, Prof Sebastian Lucas of London’s Guy’s and St Thomas Hospital, yesterday told an inquest at Burnley Coroner’s Court he believed the mother-of-two may have fallen victim to Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome (SADS).

He gave evidence after the hearing was told Dr Richard Fitzmaurice, who conducted the first autopsy on Mrs Whiteside, of Copster Hill Close, Guide, had given the cause of death as sepsis, a type of blood poisoning, linked to aspirated stomach content.

Prof Lucas told the inquest Mrs Whiteside, a former St Christoper’s, Accrington pupil, had shown no respiratory or blood pressure problems following the birth of her baby by caesarian section.

He said: “People who are septic are ill. Jane Whiteside was not ill. She was fine and then she was dead.

“She was well in terms of her blood pressure, pulse, respiration. She was feeding the baby at 7am that morning.”

Prof Lucas said after eliminating all other possibilities, only two remained, either Mrs Whiteside had suffered a pulmonary embolism or died as a result of SADS.

The inquest heard that Dr Fitzmaurice, who is due to give evidence today, had ruled out an embolism, during the post-mortem examination.

But the professor said this could only be discounted if a thorough dissection of the pulmonary arteries had been conducted. Prof Lucas said only around 500 deaths were attributed to SADS in the UK each year and around half of them, outside pregnancy, could be attributed to ‘inbuilt electrical impulses in the heart’.

He told the hearing this could be picked up by a cardio-electrogram machine but not detected after death.

Mrs Whiteside’s mother Jean Ridehough confirmed that members of the immediate family had undergone cardiac tests, in the wake of her daughter’s death, and had been given the all-clear.

The inquest heard on September 25 2011 Mrs Whiteside, who had undergone a caesarean under general anaesthetic as she suffered from the back condition scoliosis, had fed the baby around 7am and was observed sitting in a chair at around 8.40am.

But when a staff member returned at around 9.40am to clear away her breakfast things, and baby Ben was crying, she was unresponsive and the alarm was raised.

Several midwives were involved in effort to resuscitate her but a number told East Lancashire coroner Richard Taylor they believed she had already ‘passed away’.

Mrs Ridehough has expressed concerns that her daughter’s legs had become swollen and misshapen following Ben’s birth, but this complaint was not picked up by physicians before the death.

She has also said her daughter was not seen by either a doctor or an anaethetist in the days after her operation.

Mrs Ridehough added: “She was in a ward that was permanently staffed and her bay was not that far from the nurses’ station.”

The hearing continues.