A Hampshire mother died from a rare heart condition just eight days after giving birth to triplets, an inquest heard.

Isabel Mason had little more than a week to get to know her newborn babies before she suddenly collapsed at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester.

Doctors and midwives battled for more than an hour to resuscitate the first-time mother but were unable to save her. She suffered a cardiac arrest and died on March 10, 2012.

Mrs Mason had remained in hospital where her premature babies, Mattias, Lukas and Sarah, were being looked after in the special care baby unit.

Mrs Mason, 34, died from haemopericadium, where blood leaks into the heart from a tear in the artery. Medical staff told the inquest in Winchester the only treatment would have been emergency surgery if it had been spotted earlier, but there was no evidence she had a heart problem.

Consultant pathologist Dr Samantha Holden said the condition can be triggered by pregnancy or by Marfans syndrome, an inherited condition that can cause heart defects.

Dr Holden, who carried out a post-mortem examination, said Mrs Mason, who was 6ft, showed some of the characteristics of the condition, including being tall, but a genetic test proved inconclusive. Mrs Mason lived with her husband, Paul, in Teg Down Meads, Weeke, in Winchester. The couple both worked for Ordnance Survey in Southampton.

As they planned for a family, Mrs Mason, an IT project manager from Germany, had fertility treatment.

She was admitted to the RHCH after a pregnancy of 34 weeks and gave birth by caesarean section to three healthy babies. Consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Martin Pitman said: “As is often the case with parents who struggle to conceive, it was a joyeous event.”

Mr Mason told coroner Grahame Short his wife had a fear of needles. Just minutes before her collapse, Mrs Mason had been due to have a routine blood transfusion for anaemia, which involved inserting a cannula, or thin tube, into her arm. He asked if “extreme stress could have caused her heart to beat excessively,” causing the tear, especially if she had Marfans syndrome.

But Dr Arthur Goldsmith, a consultant anaesthetist at the RHCH, said people with a needle phobia might faint, but it would not cause a tear in the artery.

Coroner Mr Short said: “This was a tragedy for Mr Mason and Isobel’s parents, but most of all for the three children.”

Recording a narrative verdict, Mr Short said Mrs Mason died from natural causes.

In a statement afterwards, Mr Mason paid tribute to his wife and said the family had been devastated by her sudden death.

He said: “We feel extremely sad to lose Isabel; she has left a huge gap in our lives. “However we all have such happy memories of an inspiring, beautiful and much-loved person who achieved so much, including motherhood, in a life tragically cut short.”