A mother was left needing reconstructive surgery after a midwife 'butchered' her 'like a piece of meat' while trying to deliver her baby, a hearing was told today. Victoria Anderson needed extensive plastic surgery after uninsured midwife Susan Rose 'randomly hacked' at her and her 12lb baby with a pair of scissors. Little Daisy was cut and pulled so forcefully during her birth that the nerves in her neck and arm were completely severed. She is disabled as a result. The Nursing and Midwifery Council yesterday heard that Mrs Anderson, 39, employed Mrs Rose to deliver her third daughter at her home outside Brighton in September 2004. Mrs Anderson paid £3,000 for the home birth service because she lived some distance from the nearest hospital and she wanted the deal with the same midwife throughout her pregnancy. However, she had developed diabetes while pregnant and as a result baby Daisy had grown to an enormous 12lb inside her womb. Giving evidence Mrs Anderson was in tears as she described: 'I got in the birthing pool but I was struggling to get the head out. 'I've got a history of having big babies so I asked Sue to cut me to get the baby out. 'She did cut me and I could see the head so I thought I was home and dry - but then nothing happened. 'I thought I would deliver the shoulders and Daisy would be out but suddenly Sue started to get stressed. She was sweating. Then she threw me across the room on to all fours and started cutting me with scissors. She cut me randomly and she just kept cutting. It was as if I was a piece of meat. I was shouting get the baby out and she literally just cut her out of me. 'There was so much blood everywhere it looked like a murder had taken place in my living room.' When Daisy eventually arrived she had lost colour through a lack of oxygen and so was put in an ambulance and rushed to hospital. Her exhausted mother, meanwhile, had yet to deliver her placenta, while the panicking midwife had was in a different room making phonecalls. Mrs Anderson said: 'A friend was with me and said you have to get Sue to deliver the placenta. She eventually came back downstairs and delivered it. 'Then she wanted to stitch me up. I said absolutely not. I want to go to hospital.' Giving evidence, Mrs Anderson's husband Matt, a 42-year-old graphic designer, described the delivery as looking 'like a wrestling match'. He said 'If I had to guess I would say she cut her at least 10 times and everything was completely frantic.' He added: 'It seemed to me that Sue was wrestling with the head. Everything she did was incredibly forceful and rough and she never explained what she was doing. 'I remember lots of cuts and loads of blood. The last thing I remember before the baby was born was Sue putting both hands inside Ms A and just pulling her out.' Mrs Anderson, who has three other daughters, told the panel that her bowel had been permanently damaged during the procedure and she has since had to have extensive reconstructive surgery. Her daughter Daisy suffers from Erb's palsy, a condition which causes paralysis in the arm due to the nerves being severed when she was born. After two major operations and is able to use her fingers and hand but she cannot lift her arm up or bend it. After the birth the Andersons tried to sue Mrs Rose, but they were told they could not pursue the claim as the midwife did not have indemnity insurance. Independent midwives do not have to be insured. The couple are now campaigning to change the law so that all midwives are obliged to have insurance, in the same way that doctors are. Mrs Rose, who qualified as a midwife in 1987 and as a nurse in 2001, did not attend yesterday's London hearing. She is charged with inducing the birth when there was no medical reason to do so; not recognising sooner the labour could be an obstetric emergency; failing to call for immediate assistance; failing to ensure a second midwife was present and failing to follow protocol. She is further charged with not accompanying Mrs Anderson in the ambulance; failing to tell her that she did not have indemnity insurance; failing to record basic observations during the pregnancy and failing to keep up to date with current midwifery practice. If found guilty of misconduct, she could be banned from working as a midwife. The hearing continues. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...th.html?ITO=1708&referrer=yahoo#ixzz0dgM4r13O
That's just too much details, just go to the hospital like most people these days and get a real doctor. This story is like from a horror movie.
not could, it's she SHOULD be banned from working as a midwife, & it took almost 6 yrs for that nursing council to get to today's hearing?
I surprised the mother survived such an ordeal .. she must've been a strong and healthy woman to be able to withstand the pain and lost of blood .. damn .. how can this midwife not be arrested for what she'd done. Just wrong.
This was an accident waiting to happen. I can't fathom why, if the mother was already known as a gestational diabetic (which almost guarantees very large fetal size) that an elective Cesarean section wasn't scheduled? I'm certain also that a prelabor ultrasound would have easily been predictive of the degree of vaginal delivery difficulty. That said, Episiotomy (the cutting of the vagina and perineal tissue to facilitate birth) remains relatively common if a large baby is delivered primarily to prevent vaginal tearing (which can involve the entire space between the base of the vaginal canal and the anal sphincter). Further, the midwife should have immediately broken the baby's collarbone upon realization of Shoulder Dystocia (sudden stop to delivery progress because the baby's shoulder is wedged behind the mother's pubis, secondary to a baby being too large for birth canal) was happening. Though rarely used nowadays (because elective sections have decreased the need), it can nonetheless rescue a baby that is stuck midway with it's head hanging out of the vagina. The soft and immature collar bone then heals rather well by itself. For a nurse midwife not to immediately recognize Shoulder Dystocia, but instead resort (rather inappropriately in my view) to extensions of the episiotomy is plainly substandard care. -noclue IMHO, this disaster only occurred as a result of shoddy prenatal monitoring, as it would have easily identified the potential life threatening problems (from fetal size) before they could have taken place; the patient should then have been directed to a more medically appropriate environment and the mishap would have been avoided entirely. Compounding the tragedy was the inappropriate techniques and response by the midwife; when faced with the sudden complications, she still should have had the training and expertise to have known what to do. She obviously didn't.
