AN UNBORN baby was decapitated because of a botched delivery by an NHS consultant gynaecologist, a medical tribunal heard on Thursday (10).
Dr Vaishnavy Laxman, 41, is alleged to have ignored a mother’s pleas for pain relief during birth and wrongly went ahead with a vaginal labour instead of a Caesarean delivery which would have been safer.
The baby boy died during childbirth. His head is said to have become detached from his body when Laxman is believed to urge the 30-year-old patient to push whilst applying traction to the baby’s legs.
The child’s head had to later be removed from the womb by two doctors who carried out a C-section on the woman.
Laxman was suspended by NHS Tayside after the incident, which occurred in 2014.
The tribunal heard the baby’s head was reattached to his body, so his mother was able to say goodbye.
As the infant’s mother came face to face with Laxman at the tribunal, she said: “I don’t forgive you – I don’t forgive you.”
Holding two teddy bears, she told the hearing it was her first pregnancy and had been told her son was breech 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 the woman 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.
The hearing continues.
