Never assume...

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A recent news story highlighted the dangers of making assumptions. A nine-month-old baby was taken to the doctors with various rather non-specific symptoms. After a few visits over a period of weeks, the baby’s condition deteriorated, and it was taken to hospital where it sadly died. At the inquest it was revealed that while the father spoke excellent English (although it wasn’t his first language), the mother spoke none and had only arrived in the UK from Pakistan at 30 weeks pregnant (there were no more details about the family background). At medical appointments the father accompanied his wife and was very attentive and translated for her. But it is not clear whether he fully understood everything, or whether he translated everything clearly, or whether the doctors were put off asking too many questions because of the communication difficulties, or whether they just made assumptions – probably the latter. Because they naturally asked whether the baby was breast-fed or bottle-fed. And when they were told ‘bottle’ they probably assumed that meant baby formula, as they would expect, so they didn’t ask what was in the bottle. This turned out to be a fatal omission. Someone had convinced the mother that her baby would do better on cow’s milk, and apparently this is toxic to human babies (I didn’t know this either) – not only does it contain the wrong form of iron, but it also blocks absorption of iron from other dietary sources. So the baby died from chronic anaemia. All because the doctors didn’t ask the right question. All rights reserved. © Text copyright Fleur 2026.