MOTHER’S TRAUMA AS TRIBUNAL TOLD OF CHILD’S ‘DECAPITATION’
DOCTORS have described to a tribunal how an unborn baby was decapitated because of a botched delivery by an NHS consultant gynaecologist.
Dr Vaishnavy Laxman, 41, is alleged to have ignored a mother’s pleas for pain relief during birth and wrongly went ahead with vaginal labour instead of a Caesarean delivery which would have been safer.
The baby’s head is said to have become detached from his body when Laxman is alleged to have urged the 30-year-old patient to push while applying traction to his legs. The boy died during childbirth.
Dr Shmaila Siddiki told a medical tribunal in Manchester on Monday (14) that she “just knew” the baby was going to die.
“I saw the baby’s legs coming out of the vagina, then [Laxman] delivered up to the chest. It happened very quickly,” she recalled. “…Laxman was encouraging the patient to push and she was pulling the baby down – this was not what I was expecting.
“I was speaking to another doctor who said, ‘how is she going to do it? How is she going to deliver the head?’”
It is alleged Laxman should have given the patient, known only as Patient A, an emergency Caesarean section (C-section) as the baby was in a breech position.
The child’s head had to later be removed from the womb by two doctors who carried out a C-section on the woman.
A doctor who performed the procedure described the incident as the “most horrific” experience anybody could witness. “It has haunted me so much,” the doctor said.
Laxman was suspended by NHS Tayside after the incident at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, which occurred in March 2014.
The tribunal heard the baby’s head was re-attached to his body, so his mother was able to say goodbye.
As the infant’s mother, who was holding two teddy bears, came face to face with Laxman at the tribunal, she said: “I don’t forgive you. I don’t forgive you.”
Patient A told the hearing last week it was her first pregnancy and she had been told her son was in a breech position by a nurse. She was told she would have to undergo a C-section if any complications occurred.
“But when I was taken to the labour suite nobody told me what was happening. A lot of people were talking, they kept saying the baby needed to come out, but nobody looked at me in the eye and told me what was going to happen,” she said.
The court heard she was not given pain relief and she urged the doctors to stop what they were doing as “it [didn’t] feel right”.
Laxman allegedly delivered the legs, torso and arms successfully but the head became stuck in the patient’s cervix.
The doctor has denied contributing to the infant’s death.
Laxman’s lawyer, Gerard Boyle QC, told the woman: “Dr Laxman has asked me to say she is so very sorry and deeply saddened for the outcome of your baby.”
The hearing continues.
Kulsuma Aktergetty images