Inquest opens into newborn's brain injury death

An inquest has heard a baby who died from a brain bleed after being transferred from Wollongong to Sydney could have been treated sooner.

Helani Sirianni was born in Wollongong Hospital in February 2008 after a vacuum suction delivery.
She suffered a bleed in her brain as a result of the delivery and died when she was 47 hours old, after being transferred to the Royal Hospital for Women at Randwick.
Dr Steven Hartman, who treated the baby in Wollongong, has told an inquest in his 32 years of practice, it is the first bleed of this kind he has seen.
But he said in retrospect the baby could have been given fluids sooner than she was.
The baby's parents, who were at the inquest with other family members today, have set up a photo of her in Glebe Coroner's Court.