Posted on 01/04/2014 8:22:31 PM PST by EveningStar
Olivia Marie Coats lived for five days after her parents allege a forceps delivery crushed her little skull and caused brain death. Now, they have launched a Facebook campaign to stop the use of forceps in all births.
Allen Coats, 25, and his fiancee Rachel Melancon, 24, say they will sue their obstetrician, Dr. George T. Backardjiev, but not The Medical Center of Southeast Texas, where their daughter was born on Dec. 28. The baby was transferred that day to Houston's Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, which confirmed the baby died on Jan. 2.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I was a forceps baby ( maybe that explains much). Used to be used quite a bit. Not so much these days but it is not unheard of.
When they say this was a big baby that is so not true 7 lbs is pretty average and 22 inches is just a shade over average. The size of the mother is not the determiner…
I feel heart broken for these parents. I also wonder why they didn’t bother getting married before deciding that they were frown up enough to start a family.
I know a guy whose grandmother said be was delivered by forceps and it caused his skull to be misshaped by it. Could be true because he seemed a brick shy of a load, his grandmother always blamed the doctor for his problems. Forceps were not a part of my past, I am just plain dumb.
Yeah, it’s a last ditch attempt to avert disaster. Rarely done anymore, as we have so many c sections now. Banning forceps will result in more dead moms and children. And more c sections .
Regardless of how it appears to a nurse in the delivery room, this call has to be the doctor’s call, and not a lawyer’s. Suing to abolish a widely used (though rapidly declining), effective medical practice because it was unsuccessful in one case or a handful of cases, or because it looks dangerous is absolutely NO WAY to practice medicine.
“Fiance” nowdays just means shackup. They probably have no intentions of getting married, or they would have done so by now.
Very sad about the baby.
I may be missing something as a person with no kids. What good does suing the obstetrician do, especially now, after the baby’s death? Is it just to punish the doctor for a tragic mistake? If the child had lived, I can see suing for some of the money a disabled person will be needing during a lifetime. Is it the psychological pain that they are suing about? They would still have to prove negligence. It’s doubtful the doctor did this out of malice.
Money.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. Forceps are used rarely in deliveries in modern medicine. But if forcep deliveries are banned, many babies and their mothers will die.
This is a tragic story, but the “do something” to make the world perfect, if successful, will be more tragic.
A. Coates and his fiancee............what the hell happened to being married and responsible before cranking out kids????
My 43 year old son was a forceps baby. The mother in question was 4’11” and the baby was almost 8 lbs. and 22 inches. That is very large for a woman that small. The size of the woman’s pelvic structure is an important determinant. I was 5’5”, small boned, and my boy was 9 lbs. and 22 inches. He was also 3 weeks later than his due date. We never discussed a section. I had an epidural (spinal) anesthesia. When it came time for me to start pushing I asked them not to give more anesthesia so I could have some awareness of my pushing. It had been 13 hours of labor, but I was not exhausted. I was pushing very hard, and the doctor was pulling with forceps, although not in a dramatic manner. My husband said blood vessels were bulging on my forehead and he had never seen anyone work so hard. They had a little trouble getting his breathing started, but otherwise his Apgar score was good. He also had a little bruising on the sides of his head. I am glad I did not need a C section and my second child was born after two hours of labor in the hospital.
Doctors should have that option, but it sounds as though the Doctor in that case was not willing to give up on the vaginal birth and overdid his efforts. Parents need more education on their options and possibilities before the delivery. For example, the fact that I knew enough to not use maximum anesthesia and could help with the pushing probably meant the doctor did not have to pull too hard. On the other hand the mother in this case was already exhausted, so the doctor probably made a bad call and should have used the C section.
now you pay them to do that...it’s called abortion....how times change!
my, now 74 year old wife was 4'10, and 87 pounds when we were married in 196l...our first of three babiis was 9#4oz and the other two, a little later were about the same size....the baby was more than 10%of her weight!!! she did just fine
I was a forceps baby roughly 40 years ago. They stopped doing them here around 2000 (my friend’s daughter was one of the last in her hospital). My 9 lb face-up baby was not. The doctor reacher her hand up to ease her position. If anything, maybe only a c-section could have improved on the outcome.
My oldest and youngest babies were about 6 1/2 pounds each. My middle child was pushing 9 pounds.
The doctor used a vacuum extractor on him instead of forceps or a C-section.
I sure feel sorry for everyone in the story.
I think an auto mechanic came up with the idea.
Was an interesting post.
“He was also 3 weeks later than his due date.”
You’re lucky. I was dumb enough to get a doctor involved on Baby#1 and they force the issue starting the week before their arbitrarily calculated due date. I had to argue with the Master of Modern Birthing that God was going to decide when the baby was done cooking, not him.
malpractice doesn’t have to be malicious to get sued.
you can have a very poor, unqualified doctor who is terrible at procedures, and causes damage to patients, without malice.
just like you can have a crappy mechanic, computer guy, lawyer, etc. who screws stuff up, because they are awful, not malicious. that doesn’t make them imjune from disastrous mistakes, especially if someone dies.
a mechanic who screws up your brakes and you die b/c you slam into a wall or semi, isn’t immune from lawsuit because it was stupidity and not malice. it’s still criminal or civil negligence.
Good points. There is an element of trust the public takes with them going into any medical facility. We have a presumption of competence, especially if that provider is licensed.
not only that, doctors expect that patients defer to their expertise, and will override patients’ when they believe its medically necessary.
doctors are still taught to be confident and act like they know everything when they don’t, but patients today know a lot more about things than they did in the past, at least certain segments of their patients, and they do not put absolute trust in anyone, including doctors.
especially not with non-doctors and non-medical reasons dictating what kinds of treatments are/aren’t allowed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.