Unborn Baby Decapitated Inside Mother’s Womb Due To Gynecologist's Mistake

A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester, England, found a gynecologist guilty of medical misconduct after she accidentally decapitated an unborn baby by using the wrong method of delivery in March 2014.

Vaishnavy Vilvanathan Laxman, 43, tried to carry out a normal delivery of a 30-year-old patient at Ninewells hospital in Dundee, Scotland, while she should have performed an emergency cesarean as the premature baby was in a breech position inside the mother’s womb, the tribunal panel said in a report, The Telegraph reported.

According to the panel chairman Tim Bradbury, Laxman forced the patient to push out her baby the normal way. This caused the mother to apply undue pressure on baby’s legs, resulting in the infant’s head to become detached from his torso inside the womb.

“Because of the pain and distress that Patient A was by this time experiencing the decision was made to administer a general anesthetic following which further attempts were made to incise Patient A's cervix and extract Baby B by means of traction,” he said.

"While Patient A was under general anesthetic, Dr Laxman continued to make attempts to deliver Baby B by traction and ultimately Baby B's head became detached from his body,” he added.

The panel determined that this was a grave error in judgment on the doctor’s part as she knew the baby was in a breach position along with a prolapsed cord and low heart rate, and that the mother’s water broke at just 25 weeks and that cervix was less than 4 centimeter dilated.

Bradbury said “the central issue in this case is whether Dr Laxman's decision to attempt a vaginal delivery of Baby B (the unborn baby in question) rather than an immediate caesarean section under general anaesthetic was clinically indicated, or whether the only proper course in the circumstances would have been to proceed to an immediate caesarean section.”

"Dr Laxman had not sufficiently addressed in her mind the risk to Baby B by proceeding with a vaginal delivery — namely the risk of head entrapment and the delay this complication would inevitably cause,” he added.

During the “finding of facts,” the panel concluded that the baby had already died by the time his head became detached from his body. While the body was easily expelled from the womb, the baby’s head became stuck in the uterus with the neck in the cervix.

The other doctors who assisted Laxman then proceeded to perform a c-section to remove the baby’s head from the womb. Next, the head was “re-attached” to the body so that the patient could hold the corpse of her dead child in her arms.

"Her conduct set in train a course of events which ultimately resulted in the decapitation of Baby B and to this extent contributed to that decapitation. But for Dr Laxman's error of judgment in this regard, the decapitation would not have occurred,” the panel summarized.

Laxman, who completed her medical degree in India before relocating to the United Kingdom disagreed with the panel, saying she believed that the baby would have died if she had performed a c-section.

The unidentified patient told the panel that she was assured before the delivery that if there are any difficulties, she would be given a c-section. However, far from the recommended method of action, the doctor failed to follow a number of medical protocols during the delivery, the patient said.

“I was not given gas and air – I was in pain. I had the doctors putting their hands inside me and I had them pushing on my stomach and then pulling me down,” she said, the Guardian reported.

“I tried to get off the bed but they pulled me back three times and just said they had to get the baby out. They twice tried to cut my cervix and nobody told me they were going to do it. There was no anaesthetic. I said to them ‘it doesn’t feel right, stop it, what’s going on, I don’t want to do it’, but nobody responded to me in any way,” she added.