THE mother of a one-week old baby who died of E. coli sepsis said she had concerns after a midwife asked her what she expects when her son stopped feeding as much.

The full inquest into the death of Brandon-Robert William Collins-Hayward, from Marie Close, Poole, opened at the Bournemouth Town Hall on November 18 and is expected to last until Friday.

Brandon-Robert, was born on 29 May 2019 in Poole and died a little more than a week later on June 7.

A post-mortem found the cause of death to be E. coli sepsis.

On June 3, Ms Hayward, who was 19 at the time, noticed her son wasn’t feeding as much, going from four ounces every three hours down to two.

She also noticed him shivering and said he would grumble when he was awake.

She told the court she asked maternity support worker Karen Bale about this, and she replied: “He’s no longer feeding off you, what do you expect?”.

On June 6, Ms Hayward became unwell with signs of sepsis and was admitted to hospital.

Ms Hayward, whose pregnancy was “low-risk”, said: “I felt really weak all over. I was struggling to pick Brandon-Robert up.

“My temperature was 39.9 degrees. I was given antibiotics and told if I started to deteriorate through the evening to call 111.

“When I got back, I went to go for a sleep. When I woke up I was sweating, shivering, my face was swelling up.”

Ms Hayward said she went to hospital where she was told she was showing signs of sepsis.

During this time, Brandon-Robert was under the care of his aunt, Ms Hayward’s sister, Shelby Connors.

Mrs Connors said: “After leaving my sister at hospital I went back to my father’s address to change Brandon-Robert.

“I went back to Ella to take her back to the hospital. I then collected Brandon-Robert at 8am the following morning (June 7).

“We came back to my address, I took him out the car seat, he felt a little bit cold, I took his temperature it was 36.7 from what I can remember.

“At around half past 10 he started looking unwell.”

Mrs Connors said he had discolouration in his face and looked yellow. She phoned her dad and the midwife and Mr Collins-Hayward then “went downhill”.

She said he was starting to struggle to breath, paramedics arrived and performed CPR but he died in hospital later that day.

Detective sergeant Ben Morgan, of Dorset Police, was tasked with checking Ms Hayward and Mrs Connor’s address, as is normal protocol after the sudden death of a child.

DS Morgan said the addresses were immaculate and found no fault at all.

Dr Daniel Webster, of the University Hospitals Dorset Trust, told the inquest Ms Hayward did have two infections during pregnancy.

He said Brandon-Robert was a healthy newborn and: “infections could pass from mother to baby, not necessarily sepsis”.