A woman died in labour in a hospital lavatory after her induction was delayed because of a lack of specialist staff, an inquest was told yesterday.

Sarah Underhill, a policewoman aged 37, was in her 36th week of pregnancy when she was admitted to hospital suffering from pre-eclampsia.

The birth was to have been induced because of her condition, which causes high blood pressure. She was admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital, in Oxford, on October 2 last year but the procedure was planned for October 6. However, the day before she was due to be induced she collapsed in the toilet and was forced to call for help by banging on the door.

Doctors fought to save her twins, conceived by IVF, but she died without having seen them. The babies were delivered by emergency Caesarean section and survived after a “magnificent” effort by staff.

Yesterday the inquest was told that doctors could not have prevented her death. Mrs Underhill had previously suffered a miscarriage in 2006 after an earlier IVF pregnancy.

Sebastian Lucas, a pathologist, told the hearing that Mrs Underhill died after amniotic fluid from the womb entered her bloodstream. He told Oxford Coroner’s Court that the condition could be survived, but was “unpreventable”. Professor Lucas said: “Why did she draw the short straw and suffer severely where others may not? Who knows? It is an act of God.”

Mrs Underhill’s husband Richard, 39, a fellow Thames Valley Police officer, was not with his wife when she died. He had left her bedside the previous day because he was suffering from a cold and did not wish to pass on any germs. Close to tears, he told the inquest: “I wish I had stayed.”

Mr Underhill now cares for the twins, Hannah and James, at his home in Didcot, Oxfordshire. The inquest heard that it was “extraordinary” that both infants survived.

Previously, Mr Underhill described his wife as “glowing” in the days before she gave birth and said that she was greatly looking forward to becoming a mother. The couple met in 2000 and married five years later. Mr Underhill spoke of the doctors’ decision to induce the birth. “I think we were relieved, because the bump was getting so big,” he said. “Sarah just wanted it over and done with.”

He said he was told that the induction was planned for October 6 — a Monday — rather than the preceding weekend, because of a lack of specialist staff on the maternity unit.

In a written statement submitted to the inquest, he said he believed that his wife should have had the babies delivered sooner.

Lawrence Impey, a consultant obstetrician who treated Mrs Underhill in the days before her death, said: “If I had known what was going to happen on the Sunday, I would completely agree with him. But we had no indication this was going to happen.”

He said that the condition that killed her, amniotic fluid embolism, was “impossible to predict”. He added: “What is clear is that it is not the pre-eclampsia that did this. We have clear evidence that it was a completely different diagnosis, which is usually fatal and which is impossible to predict.”

The Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust offered its condolences to Mr Underhill for his wife’s death and said that it was keen to learn any possible lessons from the tragedy.

The inquest, due to last two days, continues.

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