Around this time, she met her future husband, Jayant, a qualified electrical engineer who later worked as a business analyst for British Telecom.
Autopsies yielded no explanations for the deaths, but a daughter who died at the age of 22 days in June 2001 was found to have four broken ribs.
It was one of a number of cases in which evidence was given by Roy Meadow, a controversial pediatrician whose testimony helped to convict Sally Clark, Angela Cannings, and Donna Anthony of murdering their babies.
After the trial started, two key prosecution witnesses, both of whom examined Mia's body and disputed Patel's claim that the fractured ribs were caused by attempts at resuscitation, said that they were no longer sure.
Professor Rupert Risdon, a paediatric pathologist, wrote to the judge saying that he had found evidence of rib fractures caused by resuscitation in three children that he had examined in the previous month alone, and Nathaniel Carey, a Home Office pathologist, said he could "no longer state categorically that the rib fractures were not due to resuscitation.
[8] A court order imposed on her after the death of Mia in 2001,[9] requiring her to be supervised when with her remaining daughter, was being reassessed by social services in light of her acquittal.