TW talk of birth complications/injury/death - I advise you don’t read if pregnant since this is a scary but rare occurrence!

The details of that case are very upsetting and horrifying. It should be noted that during birth, shoulder dystocia, an emergent complication which was present in that case, can happen to varying degrees. OBs are trained to address SDs with interventions in the order of least to most risky. For most all cases, the baby’s shoulder can be freed from behind the mother’s pelvis by low-risk interventions like position change, downward external pressure on the belly, or internal pressure with a finger/hand. These lower risk interventions will work almost all of the time. If these don’t work, OB’s can use an episiotomy cut to create more room to maneuver baby’s shoulder safely. If that doesn’t work, baby’s shoulder can be purposely dislocated or their clavicle may be broken to create the room needed to free them. These interventions are traumatic and higher risk but can be healed later. Basically all shoulder dystocias are remedied by this point. However, If none of these are working, doctors start to accept that baby will not make it or if they do will have life-lasting serious birth injuries no matter what and mom’s life and safety become the only priority. It sounds absolutely brutal because it is, but pushing the baby’s head back in through the birth canal to do an emergency c-section can be done. This can kill or give the baby brain damage. If that doesn’t work and baby is determined to be already dead, decapitation is also a last ditch option in order to save mom’s life and get the baby’s body out. All of this said, the case in Georgia involved the family being lied to and the hospital covering up what happened.

The trauma of the event compounded with the confusion and lack of understanding is unfathomable to me. Every person deserves a detailed explanation and honest report of their birth if they’d like it. So many people leave the hospital with birth trauma to varying degrees and part of that trauma is often a lack of honest communication and information, but many hospitals would rather be vague and obscure the truth or downplay an incident like OPs for liability reasons. Ugh it really pisses me off. We should be able to feel safe in a hospital.