Parents describe baby's birth as 'traumatizing' after midwife claws her head with a metal hook
The midwife used an amniotic hook to try to break Cecily's water bag which had not broken naturally.
A Tennessee family is warning pregnant women after their newborn baby girl was born covered with cuts and scratches after a midwife clawed at the infant's head with a hook.
Cecily and Paul Dantam claimed that their baby Lorelei's head was gouged numerous times with a hook during her birth on 26 November.
Cecily described the birth as "traumatizing" and took to social media as they weren't happy with the way Vanderbilt University Medical Centre responded to their complaint, WKRN reported.
In their Facebook post, which has now been shared several thousand times, the couple has raised concerns about how the hook left the baby with cuts.
The post showed Lorelei's head after birth with several scratches.
According to Cecily, after having gone through a difficult first labour, she decided to opt for a midwife and sought one out at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre.
When the induction time came, the midwife used an amniotic hook to try to break Cecily's water bag, which had not broken naturally.
According to her, the midwife failed several times to break the water bag and said, "This is a tough water bag. Oh my god, this is so tough."
The parents told WKRN that the midwife spent more than five minutes trying to break the bag but she was in reality scratching the baby's head with the hook.
The baby girl was immediately taken for a bath. The couple were later told that the baby had hypothermia and was kept in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
The parents told WKRN, "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."
"I asked several times if you are going to tell me that it was trauma of the labour that caused her to aspirate fluid. How many gouges on a baby's head signifies trauma?" Paul said.
"When I saw her head, my heart just dropped," her mom explained.
According to Cecily, when they expressed their concerns to the hospital, they received a patient relations letter on Monday (5 February) saying that the baby's admission to the NICU was due to a low blood oxygen level.
The letter never mentioned about the cuts on their baby's 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," Cecily said, according to WKRN.
The now two-month old Lorelei is back home happy and healthy.
