'Why did my baby have to die before they took precautions?'

A chance visit by a senior inspector to her work station at ST Microelectronics led Bethany Cassar to link the cysts her 17-week-old foetus had developed with her exposure to the toxic melamine.

The 25-year-old mother-to-be told The Sunday Times yesterday she had been assured by the company's health and safety officer that handling melamine did not endanger her unborn child.

Having been handling melamine for three months before she got pregnant, Ms Cassar continued placing sheets of the industrial chemical into a mould, which would then heat up and emit fumes, safe in the knowledge she was not doing any harm.

When she had an ultrasound at 17 weeks, the doctor told her and her boyfriend Claude Frendo, 26, that their unborn son had 15 cysts on each kidney - there was a risk Kyle Christian would not live.

Inconsolable, Ms Cassar took time off from work to come to terms with the news, and only returned six weeks later. That was when a senior inspector coincidentally passed by and casually asked her what a pregnant woman was still doing working with melamine.

Ms Cassar told him the health and safety officer had assured her it was not a problem, which was when he warned her: "It suits them to tell you that; you had better speak to management."

That was when it clicked that her pregnancy problems could be linked to her work with melamine. After the conversation she confronted management, and she was given a new position within the company where she did not come into contact with the chemical.

Last year, six toddlers died and 300,000 babies fell ill in China after consuming baby formula milk contaminated with melamine. The children had developed kidney stones after melamine, an industrial compound used in making plastics and fertiliser, was added to milk and other products to cheat protein tests, prompting Chinese-made products to be stripped from shelves worldwide.

This same chemical is what killed Ms Cassar's baby. The autopsy results revealed Kyle had died from causes directly linked to his mother's exposure to melamine at ST Microelectronics.

This led Ms Cassar and her partner to file a judicial protest last Thursday against the company in connection with their son's death.

When she moved to another part of the plant, things improved slightly and the cysts on the foetus's kidneys stopped growing and started to recede. However, her doctor was not convinced Kyle would make it and he advised her not to get too emotionally attached to the baby.

"I was meant to have a respirator, proper gloves and something to protect my eyes but nothing of the sort was provided. Instead, I just had a gauze mask through which you could still smell the melamine," she said.

With tears rolling down her cheek, Ms Cassar, who has worked with St Microelectronics as a machine operator for eight years, recalled the roller-coaster pregnancy that has left her emotionally drained.

Kyle was meant to be born on January 10 but the cysts were leading to a short supply of amniotic fluid - which protects the foetus and allows it to develop properly - so the doctors decided to perform an emergency Caesarean in November in a bid to save his life.

"I prayed to the Lord to just let me have him until he was 10 years old, so I could give him one of my kidneys," she said, getting teary-eyed as she recalled the moments of anguish.

On November 20, doctors recommended she take two injections, with a 12-hour gap between each one, to help the baby compensate for the lack of amniotic fluid.

However, soon after the first jab the midwife found an irregular heartbeat and that was when all hell broke loose - the baby would have to be delivered.

"I burst into tears. They literally ran me through the corridors up to the operating theatre," she said.

Mr Frendo rushed to her bedside and made it in time for the delivery.

When she came round they told her Kyle was fine and everything went according to plan. She recalled: "I was so happy. I immediately started to SMS all my work colleagues that he was OK, but sadly my happiness was short-lived as soon he took a turn for the worse."

Some hours later, the nurses told her "fetch a camera, fetch a camera". She did not immediately realise it was because her son was not going to make it.

They wheeled her over to see him and they christened him. "I touched his foot and he moved as if he was tickled, and after that I went to rest."

At 3.45 a.m. the phone by her bedside rang - it was bad news. Kyle was not doing well and they brought him to her; he was shaking. He died 15 minutes later and she cradled him for six hours, not letting go until 10 a.m.

In the aftermath, she fell into a deep depression and became very angry with her employers for not doing more to help her.

"I have just found out the section where I used to work now has respirators. Did my baby have to die before they installed them?" she asked.

Despite the ordeal, she feels ready to have another baby, but prefers to wait a little longer because the looming court case against the company has opened a Pandora's Box of emotions.

She now works with YMCA as a care worker with teenagers, which has helped her cope, while her partner has got her a dog, Fritz, to help temporarily shift her focus.