If anything, it would be WORSE if the mother was aware the baby had died because they wouldn’t have had the excuse that they needed to play this horrific Muppet show in order to cover up their possible liability if they had killed the baby. If the mother was aware she was trying to deliver a dead baby they could/should have prepared her with information as presented by Qadgop that dealing with dead tissue has some problems they wouldn’t encounter with a live baby and informed her of the risks and possible outcomes, as is their responsibility as medical providers. In that case they should have been upfront in letting the mother know that the condition of the baby is distressing and prepared her to deal with that. Instead, we have…whatever this is. Even if there’s no issue of medical malpractice or mistakes made, this situation was very poorly handled.
None of the reporting excludes that as a possibility. Nothing is known of what the mother was warned about in advance. It’s not clear that there even was a coverup, as opposed to normal hospital policy at work. Should the doctor have been obligated to show the patient a bin of the dismembered body parts?
No, you don’t throw a full term stillborn baby into a bin. Ever. Regardless of what happened or how bad it is. You TELL the mother what happened and then you ASK her if she wants to see her baby. I was talking about this case with my DIL who works at a women’s clinic where they handle all kinds of obstetric cases and she says that everyone at her place of work is appalled by what they’re hearing of how this case was handled. And unless you yourself have relevant experience in obstetrics or have carried and borne a baby yourself I’m going to substantially discount your opinion on this issue. Also, your belligerent tone is unwarranted and unappreciated.
Just FYI, that isn’t uncommon at all. Many women choose to have their own trusted OB/GYN deliver their baby instead of some random resident or hospital OB/GYN they don’t know.
I don’t think I said anything belligerent, but to the extent I have any hostility, it’s directed entirely toward the obviously sensationalist reporting. Most people reading these articles are going to come away with the impression that the doctor killed the baby by ripping its head off, even though the reality is probably much closer to the situation that Qadgop described.
Do the people at your DIL’s clinic have any information outside of what’s been published already?
“The lawsuit states that about an hour before the baby was eventually delivered by C-section, fetal heart tones stopped.”
Pretty impressive to reach the fragile squishy corpse state in just one hour.
Well, at least one journalist bothered to dig up the text of the lawsuit. A doctor will have to comment on the rest, though I highly doubt that the state of the tissue is the only thing at play here.
Yet in Qadgop’s case it was 10 minutes. I don’t think any of us have any knowledge of what took place here. Or what takes place during the most drastic cases. The articles are only the lawsuit as per the parents’ understanding of what occurred, and the clickbaiting reporting thereof.
No, it was not. I quote:
“The demise had occurred at least a few days before and triggered labor at about 7 months or so.”
Is it clear that it was a full decapitation and not an internal decapitation, where the neck bones and skull are separated but the head is still attached by muscles and skin? The lawsuit claims doctors “pulled on the baby’s head and neck so hard and manipulated them so hard, that the bones in the baby’s skull, head and neck were broken.” (bolding mine)
It’s still grossly negligent to try to hide it, but that isn’t quite as sensational as a detached head being propped on the body’s shoulders.
People are trying very hard in this thread for some reason to jump to the conclusion that the details in the news are sensationalism, but it seems pretty clear that the head was literally detached from the body, not just the neck damaged.:
Sylvania Watkins knew something wasn’t right when he received a decapitated baby at his funeral home.
“I just felt a sense of urgency to say, ‘Hey listen, this is not right, this is not right.’ Never seen it before,” said Watkins, general manager of the Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home.
Watkins found it peculiar to receive a decapitated baby from a hospital.
“With the body and the head being detached, we should have retrieved this body from the coroner’s office. When that did not happen, that’s when I said we need to reach out and back up and do it right,” said Watkins.
Watkins first called the family of the baby.
In a conversation with the baby’s grandmother, Watkins said he immediately knew that the family did not know the baby’s head was detached from his body.
Ah, missed that.
This case features a familiar basis for labor and delivery lawsuits, namely whether caesarean section was called for earlier but not implemented - which can be a tough call.
Regardless, if the family’s allegations about “staging” of the body in the hospital to conceal decapitation, discouraging autopsy and recommending cremation are true, then a successful defense becomes a lot more difficult - that business about the coverup being worse than the “crime”.
The hospital statement did something of a deceptive dance when emphasizing that the physician was not an employee. OB-GYNs typically are approved to deliver babies and perform other services for patients on the basis of being on staff and having staff privileges, which implies a certain degree of hospital oversight. I highly doubt that the OB-GYN just waltzed in without any hospital knowledge to do the delivery.
Yes, it’s clear because the body was delivered via c-section but they were unable to back the head up and also take it out via the incision and the woman separately delivered the head vaginally.
And my main objection to how this was handled is that the hospital and the OB/GYN failed abysmally to fully brief the woman as to the state of labor and what was happening with the baby–then tried to cover up in the most horrendous way possible. Babies heads get stuck in the birth canal, that happens, however after three hours with the head stuck in place and clear signs of fetal distress, which the hospital admits to as they are now saying fetal demise occurred an hour before they took the rest of the baby out via surgery, the hospital should have moved a lot more quickly. Fetal monitoring should have alerted them and the c-section should have begun way before it did–especially because the OB/GYN has been delivering babies for over a quarter of a century and should have made better decisions AND been more forthcoming to the mother about her choices and what was happening. They made poor decision after poor decision culminating in threatening the mother with a bill for the autopsy and trying to sneak a baby with its head popped off past the ME. There’s plenty of blame to go around here and most of it seems to point at the hospital/medical side of the situation.
New details:
According to the lawsuit, the fetal monitor showed an abnormal fetal heartbeat starting at 9:26 p.m., and the heart rate continued to decrease until 10:36 p.m. There was no sign of a fetal heartbeat on the monitoring strips by the time St. Julian performed an emergency C-section at 11:49 p.m., the lawsuit says. The baby’s body was delivered at 12:11 a.m.
Thanks for the bump. Here’s a more detailed article:
Years back I worked IT at a hospital where I was responsible for printing out pictures of the fetal deaths. Seeing the way they would pose the greenish, alien-like corpses like normal baby pictures (wearing pink headbands, etc) was soul crushing. I wept the entire 30 minute drive home. every. single. time.
We’ve seen some shit, my friend. I don’t talk about it much, and then only with my physician friends. My wife never got told those sorts of details; she doesn’t need to hear 'em. She’d just accept that I’d had a rough day and didn’t push for info.
Honestly I’m glad I’m done with medicine. But choosing to work in some of medicine’s darker underserved corners isn’t something I regret.
Was this from Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep?
My old hospital used to have a page for newborn baby pictures, if the parents consented, and I remember seeing a few who were clearly abnormal. And I’m not talking Down Syndrome-level abnormal, either. I’m talking “incompatible with life” abnormal, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious.