My wife has a cousin who has 3 children already. She was again expecting, however, when her water broke she waited 3 days after to go to the hospital. The baby dried up and died. My question is this, although it was incredible wrong (morally that is) is there any legal wrong doings. If this was her first pregnancy she might be able to plead ignorance, but certainly not after giving birth to 3 children previously.
You step into the stream, yet the water keeps moving…Now you are in the presence of abscence
A very tragic event, indeed. There are many issues surrounding this hot topic. First, a woman may not even know her water has broken. Next, many doctors and birthing classes do not stress enough how VITAL this is to the baby. Perhaps an OBGYN could tell all.
Legally, the State would have to prove intent, negligence, etc. I’m not sure how State Laws handle such events. And, if she were criminally responsible, would the doctors themselves be open for reciprocal lawsuits? You can sue anyone for anything, but you need some legal grounds to get it heard by a court of law in the first place.
In essence, it would boil down to laws protecting a woman’s body, etc. I know you are not trying to open a debate here - just trying to establish the facts about the laws which govern here.
Doesn’t labor start when the water breaks? Wouldn’t the kid have just delivered itself, so to speak?
I’m willing to bet there are sometimes complications, but how common are they, especially in someone who delivered three (presumably) healthy kids already?
We’re about halfway through our childbirth class. The instructor made sure she explained what precedes the water breaking (losing the cervix mucus plug, variations of labor pains)so that we’ll expect it, as well as descibing the variations of its appearance and volume.
Labor usually starts before the water breaks, i.e., the baby descends towards the birth canal without breaking its sac. The opposite can happen too, which is very dangerous. If the baby isn’t blocking the way out, the umbilical cord can slip out first. For that, the woman should immediately drop to her knees and shoulders and call 911. A Ceasarian is done ASAP to get the baby.
We also learned that if the baby isn’t delivered with 24 hours of the water breaking that they’ll strongly suggest a C-section. After 36, it’s imparative.
Judges 14:9 - So [Samson] scraped the honey into his hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the body of the lion.
Just another reason not to have children to begin with…
I would agree with Satan, that labor should start at least when the water breaks, or before. If the uterous is not contracting, there’s not much a woman can do to just push the baby out by herself. Her body would have to help. As women age, their bodies may start to do wierd things that interfere with healthy pregnancy and delivery - this could be the case here. And I’ve heard that water breaking often isn’t a big, gushing affair; it is frequently manifested as a little dampness, not really unusual for women.
I don’t even see how it could be morally wrong to lose a late term pregnancy to a freak accident or a complication due to advancing age. I have a hard time seeing how anyone who would go to the trouble of carrying a pregnancy to almost full term would then decide to maliciously harm/end it. If she didn’t want another child, there are much easier ways to stop a pregnancy early on.
I took health in HS and college, and was even a biology major for 4 semesters, and I had never made the water breaking - baby drying up connection. It’s just never come up in my own experience. I hope it never does.
Anyway, my condolences to your wife’s cousin’s family on their loss.
When I say morally wrong I am referring to the fact that she is young, knew that her water had indeed broke, yet chose(keyword) not to get help? I just wonder the about the legal aspects of it, not because I want to pursue any action, but just because I have be thinking about the difference between that and say abandoning a baby…which is illegal.
Yes, I would say it would take a cruel mind and a cold heart to do such a thing. Didn’t she have to go to the emergency room? She’s just damn lucky she did not become septic from her little “plan”.
I wonder if the emergency room must report such incidents so that these people are at least encouraged to seek psychological help?
By the way, you can even be in the early stages of labor and not realize it. But, by the third child, I wonder. Also, water can break prematurely without labor starting. This is a bad scenario as mentioned above.
This is in no way intended to justify the woman’s behavior–I think it is horribly negligent, but it is possible that she didn’t intend to kill the baby. I have had two births where labor did not start after my water broke. If she had gone to the hospital after her water broke, she would either have had her labor induced chemically (as I did), or have been given a c-section.
Some women have developed really negative attitudes toward hospital births and medical interventions–either through indocrination by “natural” birth proponents, or as a result of bad experiences. She may have wanted to wait for labor to start naturally in order to avoid drugs or surgery. I’m not excusing her, but a lot of natural birth types do try to convince women to delay going to the hospital as long as possible.
Thanks for all your thoughts. I’m sorry for such a morbid discussion topic. I don’t know the mother very well, and it is the first time I have ever heard of such a thing happening. I’m sure tragedies like these happen every where, at a much more frequent amount of time than I’d like to think. I’ve been thinking about this much more than I ever would have thought. I am going to see her this weekend, and I don’t know if I will feel sympathy for her loss, which I know does not affect her, or resentment that she could do such a thing. It also makes me wonder how she treats her other children…