Parents Are Furious After the Doctor Cuts Their Baby’s Face During C-Section

C-sections are generally safe and they have saved countless mothers and babies’ lives over the years. They’re not completely without risk, though. Nothing about childbirth is completely without risk, and a c-section is a surgery. Like any surgery, complications can occur. Now a set of new parents from the U.K. is livid because a doctor cut baby’s face during c-section, and the parents say the hospital has been more ready to talk to the press about it than to talk to them.

According to The Mirror, Karmen Edwards was born in June, 2016. Her mother says the whole birth process was a disaster from the beginning. For starters, a “shake-up” with maternity services in her area meant she had to make a hundred-mile journey to a different city with a hospital that could deliver her baby.

An inconvenient birth plan.

Emma Edwards lives in Wick, Scotland, and says she made the 2-hour to Inverness. She was scheduled to have her baby by c-section on Friday, June 16, because scans said the fetus was very large. On Friday nobody could see her, and on Saturday nobody could see her. She went home and planned to come back on Monday.

On Sunday, however, her water broke and she went into labor. So she had to make that long trip again while in labor.

A doctor delivered the baby girl by c-section, but accidentally cut the baby’s face during the procedure. That left a large cut between the baby’s eye and ear, and it meant that nurses rushed the baby off for care as soon as she was born. After all that, then they take the baby away? Of course it was medically necessary, but it must have been brutal for Edwards.

Then it took 24 hours for the baby’s wound to be stitched up, because a plastic surgeon had to travel there from a different city, two more hours away. The whole thing was very frustrating and alarming for the new parents.

The hospital was not forthcoming.

The doctor then told Edwards that the accident had happened because Edwards had not told anyone that she was in labor when the c-section began. Active labor increases the risk of lacerations during a c-section.

Edwards checked her medical records. They indicate that she had told staff that her water had broken and she was in labor when she got to the hospital.

The NHS launched an investigation into the incident and subsequently adjusted several practices regarding obstetric care and c-sections in the area. Now patients get more information about the risks associated with c-sections and more detailed consent forms to fill out. They’ve also made changes to the way doctors are briefed before surgeries.

Edwards and her family say the hospital did not contact them when the investigation was finished. They found it particularly galling because the hospital did give a statement to the press.

“They managed to release a statement to the press but haven’t got in touch with us in the days since,” Emma Edwards’ father said to Metro. The family says they’re considering getting a lawyer. They say the changes the hospital made after the incident indicate that the hospital was at fault.

The family was clearly unhappy with the way the baby’s birth was handled.  A birth story like that would frustrate anybody. Fortunately, it’s a year later and the baby is alive and healthy. Even the scar, which looked huge on a newborn, is barely visible now.

(Image: Facebook / George Baker)

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