Childbirth is an extraordinarily momentous occasion for any family.
After waiting months and months to meet their child, the moment finally arrives to welcome their newest family member into the world and the parents can to see their baby for the very first time.
It’s an emotional time for all involved.
Although delivery can have the potential of being more ritualistic than emotionally moving for doctors, we would still hope they would treat every single baby as the unique and precious gift they are.
It should go without saying, but babies are fragile.
While not made of glass, newborn babies require much attention to how they are handled in order to avoid causing serious injury.
Premature babies especially need to be handed with care.
Today’s Parent reported that newborn babies have very low muscle tone, particularly in their neck. This is why it’s so important that babies are handled with care and always have their heads supported to prevent any head or brain injuries.
Considering how delicate newborns are, it seems fair to expect delivery doctors and nurses to handle them with care.
After all, these are the people who are responsible for helping to bring the baby into this world. They’re the first ones who touch the baby, and the one who help them out of the birth canal (or, during a C-Section, out of the uterus).
Their role in the baby’s delivery is crucial to ensuring a healthy newborn.
They’re the first ones to personally hand them to their mother. New mothers are often exhausted and worried, and understandably so — labor can be a scary process, and most new moms just want to make sure their baby is okay.
But what if not all health care professionals are as careful as they should be?
According to ABC 15 , a Valley couple have made public a homemade video of their twin daughters’ delivery in which one premature girl is seen being dropped out of the hands of a hospital employee.
Derrick and Monique Rodgers couldn’t believe what they saw.
In the video shared on Facebook , the baby falls out of the employee’s hands and lands on a table before a nurse picks her up again.
“It made me so mad,” Derrick said of the moment he inadvertently caught on video.
“Like, I had to stop recording.”
Monique said she felt like her daughter had been treated “like a sack of potatoes” rather than as a fragile preemie.
The video quickly went viral, but the Rodgers still haven’t received any sort of apology from the hospital.
Derrick told ABC 15 he confronted the doctor who he claims was holding his daughter, Morgan, at the time of her fall.
“I told him, ‘You dropped my baby,'” Derrick said.
“He had a nonchalant look on his face. Then I showed him the video, and he had nothing to say after that.”
Derek also said that the doctor initially told him it was an “almost fall” until he showed him the video.
“You know, an apology when it happened could’ve gone a long way,” Monique said.
She and Derrick hope Morgan will grow up to be a happy and healthy person, but wish the hospital would learn from this incident and take better care in handling newborns.
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The hospital has refused to comment, but a former NICU nurse told ABC 15 accidents happen in delivery rooms.
She said doctors are especially prone to accidents while looking to ensure a preemie is breathing normally and responding like any other infant.
While the fall is indeed shocking for viewers of the video, she said the incident was relatively minor.
Warning: the following video may be distressing for some viewers.
Although Morgan is still small, her parents have said she is doing fine otherwise. Their only concern is her tendency to shake.
“I would like to know if this was due to her having a low birth weight or if it was due to her being dropped on her head,” Monique said.
h/t: ABC 15
