THE mother of a severely disabled two-year-old girl who died in her sleep at her Pontypool home was praised by Gwent's senior coroner for her "outstanding" care of her daughter.

Karmen Kalaci, who lived with cerebral palsy and several other health issues, was found unresponsive in bed on September 14 last year, and could not be revived by paramedics or a Royal Gwent Hospital paediatric resuscitation team.

An inquest hearing at Gwent Coroner's Court in Newport was told Karmen was born in Turkey, where her father serves in the armed forces. Issues with insufficient oxygen at birth had caused damage known as hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy.

Her consequent health issues required constant care. She was also registered blind, unable to sit up unaided and had dystonia, meaning she often lost control of her muscles. She needed a range of medication over 24 hours, was fed through a tube, and mum Paige Dixon had learned to do all of this.

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Ms Dixon and her daughter had lived with her grandmother and mother, but she had secured a flat and finished preparing Karmen's room the day before she died. Her mother rose at 4am every day to administer medication and check her daughter, and did so on the morning she died.

Karmen was breathing normally and there were no concerns. But when Ms Dixon woke again at around 7am she said in a statement that she knew something was not right. Karmen was normally quite loud when sleeping, but it was silent.

A post mortem examination did not reveal a specific cause, and Gwent's Senior Coroner Caroline Saunders agreed with the finding that Karmen's had been the sudden unexplained death of a child with cerebral palsy after hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy. It seemed, she said, that her health problems had "overwhelmed" her.

Concluding that death was due to natural causes, she said she was "very confident" Karmen did not suffer and that it had been very sudden. She said the level of care Karmen received during her life was "a credit to (Karmen's) mother who rarely if ever left her side".

Addressing Ms Dixon and mother Claire Dixon, she said efforts made to care for Karmen had been "outstanding" and there was nothing more they could have done.