A review into the death of a seven-month-old girl who was beaten by her mother found there were no “obvious signs of concern” about the mother’s behaviour while her daughter was in hospital.

In a report delivered to the Essex Safeguarding Children Board Review, lead reviewer Felicity Scholfield concluded health professionals had not missed "obvious" signs of abuse during the girl’s (who cannot be named for legal reasons) time in various hospitals.

The infant (referred to as Baby A), suffered fractures to the skull, cracked ribs and bleeding behind the eyes at the hands of her mother.

She, died in Whipps Cross Hospital on in August 2017.

The mother had been advised how to undertake CPR by ambulance control but when the ambulance arrived there was no evidence of her having followed this advice as Baby A remained in her cot.

In 2019, her mother Shalina Padmanabha, of Buckhurst Hill, was convicted of manslaughter and cruelty against a person under 16 and jailed for six years.

Baby A was born prematurely in January 2017 and with significant health problems which required her to remain in hospital for the first four months of her life.

Doctors and nurses who worked with the family in those first four months were not at fault for missing any obvious signs, the report concluded.

“There was nothing about this family that might suggest that their daughter would be deliberately harmed”, Ms Scholfield said.

“The parents were not previously known to any safeguarding service and no safeguarding concerns had come to light during the ante-natal period, whilst Baby A was in hospital or whilst she was living at home.”

However, a doctor at an unnamed specialist hospital failed to identify a fractured leg in July, which Ms Scholfield concluded was a “missed opportunity to safeguard Baby A”.

In the four weeks before she died, baby A was seen by health professionals on 18 occasions, including two brief inpatient stays in two different hospitals.

“No concerns were recorded about either parent’s care of Baby A by any professional during this period. Even with the benefit of hindsight following Baby A’s death, practitioners reported that there was nothing about the mother that gave them cause for concern”, Ms Scholfield said.