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A baby’s head is decapitated during the course of delivery. Would you like to learn
what happened? Come join me as I share with you this horrific story, coming out of Missouri.
Hi. I’m Gerry Oginski. I’m a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial
attorney practicing law here in the state of New York. This story is reported by the
New York Daily News and it’s a horrific story. A woman was told during the course
of her pregnancy do not have a vaginal delivery, because your baby is simply too big. Well
that doctor wasn’t on call and another doctor was caring for her, who told her “Not a
problem, you can have a vaginal delivery.” Well what do you think happens? During the
course of delivery, the baby’s head was delivered but the shoulders and the body got
stuck. And as a result, according to the parent’s claims, what happened was the doctor was applying
excessive traction to the baby’s head. And according to them, the doctor severed the
baby’s head from the spinal cord. And to make matters worse, tried to cover the whole
thing up by pushing the baby’s head back up into the birth canal and then rushing the
Mom back to the c-section room to do an emergency crash c-section. Now, the baby was born dead.
Now as tragic as that is, the question becomes how is it possible that the baby’s head
can be severed from the body? One of the only ways that can happen is applying excessive
traction and causing a fracture – causing a break – between the head and the spinal
cord. If the shoulders get stuck, there are certain things that can be done by the physician
(and by the way, that’s known as “shoulder dystocia” – that’s the medical term
that the doctors use) and there are 5 different maneuvers that doctors are taught to use in
the event of a shoulder dystocia, where the shoulders are too big for the birth canal
or the baby’s body is too big. And one of the first things that they are taught to do
is something called “McRoberts maneuver.” And that’s where they push the mother’s
legs and the feet all the way up, so that the knees are basically touching her chest.
And the reason for that is to allow a greater curvature so that the baby can pass through
the birth canal. If that doesn’t work, another method for trying to relieve the stuck shoulder
is by placing one of their hands into the *** in an attempt to rotate the baby’s
shoulders. Not the head, but the baby’s shoulders in an attempt to get it unstuck.
Sometimes that will work, sometimes it won’t. Another possibility is to apply gentle traction
to the baby’s head and gently rotate. Another thing that can be done is to intentionally
fracture the baby’s clavicle. And the reason for that is once the fracture is done, once
the clavicle is fractured; now there is more room to allow the baby to pass through the
Mom’s birth canal. Another method that is taught to these doctors is – and this is
very extreme and it’s very rare – is to actually fracture the mother’s pelvis in
an attempt to make more room to allow the baby to pass through. So why do I share this
information with you? Chances are you’re watching this and you may be concerned about
your own delivery or your child may have an injury to their arm that’s known as “Erbs
palsy” or “Klumpke’s palsy” that can happen during the course of a delivery when
there’s injury to a nerve that controls the brachial plexus and controls the arm.
And if that occurred to you and your child has this problem, you may be wondering how
this happened. Well if you have legal questions, what I encourage you to do is pick up the
phone and call me. I can answer your legal questions. You can reach me at 516-487-8207
or by email at lawmed10@yahoo.com. I’m Gerry Oginski, here in New York. Thanks for watching.