Family wants apology after baby’s head gouged during birth
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – A family is warning pregnant women after their baby was injured during birth. The Dantams say their baby’s head was gouged numerous times with amniotic hook.
They decided to take their concerns to social media after they said they weren’t happy with Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s response to their complaint.
The Facebook post has now been shared several thousand times, raising concerns with a number of mothers. The post shows little Lorelei’s head after birth with several scratches on the crown of her head.
Wide-eyed and all smiles, the 2-month-old looks happy and healthy today.
“There’s a white line, there’s a white line, and that’s it. She made a full, full recovery,” Cecily Dantum told News 2.
However, she describes the day she gave birth to her little girl as traumatic.
“It was a nightmare. That birth was traumatizing,” she explained.
Cecily says it began Nov. 26 at Vanderbilt when her mid-wife used an amniotic hook to break her water.
“She went in and she was like, ‘This is a tough water bag. Oh my god, this is so tough,’ and she was just jamming it in there,” she recalled.
Her husband Paul told WISH-TV’s sister station WKRN, “She spent 5 to 10 minutes digging with the hook and telling us it was the hardest water bag that she had ever felt.”
The Dantams say the mid-wife spent several minutes scraping what she thought was an amniotic sack but was actually the top of their baby’s head.
“She was wailing away, with abandon, with reckless abandon honestly,” expressed Cecily.
The family says caretakers with the hospital then rushed Lorelei off, insisting she was given a bath. The family says that’s when she got hypothermia and ultimately ended up in the NICU.
“After the delivery, they mentioned to us she was having trouble breathing, and she had aspirated some of the amino fluid, and they said it was the trauma of the birth. The NICU said they didn’t know what happened; it was probably just the trauma of the birth,” explained the Dantams.
As for the trauma, the family believes had much to do with the gouges on their baby’s head.
“I asked several times if you are going to tell me that it was trauma of the labor that caused her to aspirate fluid. How many gouges on a baby’s head signifies trauma?” said Paul.
A number of pictures show several deep cuts on the crown of Lorelei’s head.
“When I saw her head, my heart just dropped,” her mom explained.
After expressing their concerns to the hospital, the family received a patient relations letter Monday saying Lorelei’s admission to the NICU was due to a low blood oxygen level, but it failed to mention the cuts on their babies head.
“I just want an apology. I don’t want to have to pay for an injury that was done to my daughter by the hospital staff. That’s not right to me,” said Cecily.
She says after receiving the letter, she called Vanderbilt for an explanation but didn’t get a response. That’s when she went to social media to warn other mothers to be careful if they plan to deliver there.
Cecily said the post prompted a call from Vanderbilt officials, who she says now is planning to meet with her family and reopen the case.
WKRN spoke with the Director of the Vanderbilt Nurse Midwifery Practice. Melissa Davis says all of their midwives are masters-prepared nurses with about 130 years of experience combined within their practice.
While she was unable to talk specifically about the Dantams’ experience, Davis, who is also a certified mid-wife, says it’s not common to scratch the head of a baby with the amniotic hook, but it does happen.
“When we are rupturing the membranes or breaking the water, if the membranes are very tightly pressed around the babies head, it can be more difficult than if they were looser and more like a balloon, so it is possible to cause a superficial abrasion to a baby’s head during that process. It can happen. It’s not considered malpractice, it’s not considered poor care; it is just something that can occur during rupturing of membranes,” Davis explained.
Vanderbilt officials went on to say providing excellent patient care is a priority, so it always concerns them when there are questions about their care.