
A Texas couple blames a botched forceps delivery for their newborn daughter’s death a few days after her Dec. 28 birth. According to the parents, newborn Olivia Coats’ skull was crushed during her birth when the doctor struggled to deliver the baby using forceps. The family reportedly plans to sue their obstetrician, Dr. George T. Backardjiev, according to the National Monitor.
"We're not mad at the hospital, this is not their fault. It is one man's fault," Angie Coats, Olivia Coats’ grandmother, told ABC News. "We only want justice for Olivia; we want the person responsible, which is the doctor. We don't want the hospital being shunned."
Angie Coats told ABC News that her daughter-in-law had a “normal, healthy pregnancy,” but that the couple had requested a C-section delivery because of the baby’s size. Olivia weighed nearly 8 pounds and was 22 inches long at birth.
Backardjiev, however, refused to perform a C-section, telling the mother, 24-year-old Rachel Melancon, that she would have a scar afterwards. Instead, the doctor used forceps to help deliver the baby. Angie Coats told reporters that the doctor struggled with the forceps, and “even put his foot on the bed” to try and pull the baby out.
"He was turning and twisting and she would never come out,” she recalled. “He put the forceps one way and the other. When he touched the top and side of the skull, we heard a pop, like clay cracking in pottery and heard her skull crush."
The medical staff assured Melancon and her fiance, 25-year-old Allen Coats, that their baby was alive. Olivia Coats was swiftly transferred to Children’s Memorial Harmann Hospital in Houston, where the parents learned that their daughter had suffered several skull fractures. Olivia Coats died on Jan. 2.
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