Mother loses twins in abortion mix-up

Story found here: LINK

Quote :

A healthy 32-week old foetus has been aborted by mistake in a tragic mix up at an Australian hospital.

A mother expecting twin boys was told by doctors one of the babies had a serious congenital heart defect and she decided to have him aborted. However surgeons on Tuesday accidentally terminated the healthy twin. The sick twin then also died, reportedly after an emergency caesarean section operation.

The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne would not confirm details, but said in a statement: "The Royal Women's Hospital can confirm a distressing clinical accident occurred on Tuesday. This is a terrible tragedy and the hospital is deeply sorry for the loss suffered by the patient and her family. We are conducting a full investigation and continue to offer the family and affected staff every support."

A close friend of the mother told The Herald Sun newspaper: "She went to hospital with two babies and now she has none. "And she had the heartache of giving birth to her sick baby. She's traumatised."

According to reports the woman's husband, a nurse, a doctor and the ultrasound clinician, who was apparently inconsolable because of the mistake, were in the operating room at the time of the procedure.

The family is said to be struggling to comprehend how the tragedy happened and is now considering legal action.

That poor woman.

Although, I have to wonder, how exactly do they tell which one is the healthy or the sick one when they're actually doing the procedure? Do they keep the ultrasound equipment on during it or just at the initial stage?

Raine wrote:

That poor woman.

That is about all that can be said. What a terrible thing to happen to everyone involved.

This seems like a VERY easy mistake to make.

I can't distinguish between most three year olds.

Anybody saying "Whoops! Twins! Easy mistake to make!" ought to be publicly flogged.

It's only an easy mistake to make if you've got zero qualifications whatsoever. This is absolutely APALLING. I don't know how they make the mistake or don't make the mistake, but they're qualified surgeons and it's their job not to make it. Christ, what do you think they do; flip a goddamn coin? Are you gonna say, "Hmmm... people's kidneys look exactly the same, so it's understandable if you remove the wrong one"?

And do you know what?

I bet you ANY amount of money you please that the first thing Pro-Lifers will do is use this as another way to scare women into keeping babies.

The second thing they'll do is blame it all on the mom and say she deserved it.

Harley wrote:

Anybody saying "Whoops! Twins! Easy mistake to make!" ought to be publicly flogged.

Harley wrote:

I bet you ANY amount of money you please that the first thing Pro-Lifers will do is use this as another way to scare women into keeping babies.

The second thing they'll do is blame it all on the mom and say she deserved it.

God damn it, I came back to this thread because I had this GREAT idea to say this wouldn't have happened if it weren't for feminazi pro baby slaughter ideals.

Now you've ruined it for me.

HARLEY FOR TEH WIN!

I beat Mikey! How you see your Resident Freak now, WGWers?

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

HARLEY FOR TEH WIN!

I beat Mikey! How you see your Resident Freak now, WGWers?

Which one of us is the Residential Freak?

^Harley.

Spoiler:

Okay, okay, but I maintain, this is not just one life that's been taken, but two. Three, if you want to get metaphorical about the mother. She'd better get a good win, at the very least. Somewhere in the six figures. Or better.

I can't get over the word "mix-up." Like it should be accompanied by a thrown pie or yakety sax.

Okay, 32 weeks is roughly eight months. Depending on what the twin that was sick was suffering from, they probably should have done the procedure BEFORE she was that far along. The closer you get to full-term pregnancy, the more dicey doing a selective abortion becomes, because the children are fairly large (probably in the area of four-five lbs), and the chances of accidentally aborting the wrong fetus is greater.

Also, selective abortion is difficult enough on its own. Even if you use ultrasound and know which side the one to be aborted is on, all it takes is for someone to move at the wrong time, and you can easily end up aborting the healthy baby. And once the process of labor starts, it's difficult to stop.

Cruel as it might sound, they probably would have been better off if they'd just had her carry the babies to term and delivered them naturally. Yes, she still would've had to give birth to a baby she knew was going to be born dead, or die soon after birth, but the healthy one would have been more likely to survive the process, and at least she would have ended up with one healthy baby, instead of both of them dead.

This information comes courtesy of my sister, who's been a labor and delivery room nurse for close to 35 + years, and who's dealt with situations like this in the past.

PS-It's very common for doctors to make women whose baby dies in the latter months of pregnant wait until they go into labor naturally, instead of inducing. I had a friend whose second baby died when she was six months along, and she had to carry it another couple of months till her body finally went into natural labor. This strikes me as a horrific thing to do, but my sister says it's better for the mother than inducing labor or doing a c-section, since it's less likely to cause complications if she gets pregnant again.

In short, child-birth is fraught with peril, and it's amazing, really, that most babies turn out healthy and normal, given the number of things that can go wrong.

Thanks for the info. That does sound pretty terrifying.

But yeah, I was also thinking, given enough of a gap before taking away the ultrasound equipment away and going into the procedure, isn't it possible the twins might have moved around?

I suppose she would have been told about the risks going into the procedure, or alternatives, right? Still, even telling the mother that doesn't give the doctors a free pass to be sloppy about the whole operation.

Rabid Badger wrote:

PS-It's very common for doctors to make women whose baby dies in the latter months of pregnant wait until they go into labor naturally, instead of inducing. I had a friend whose second baby died when she was six months along, and she had to carry it another couple of months till her body finally went into natural labor. This strikes me as a horrific thing to do, but my sister says it's better for the mother than inducing labor or doing a c-section, since it's less likely to cause complications if she gets pregnant again.

(Probably really ignorant, but:) Wouldn't a dead baby start to decompose / turn septic?

Sakurelf wrote:

Rabid Badger wrote:

PS-It's very common for doctors to make women whose baby dies in the latter months of pregnant wait until they go into labor naturally, instead of inducing. I had a friend whose second baby died when she was six months along, and she had to carry it another couple of months till her body finally went into natural labor. This strikes me as a horrific thing to do, but my sister says it's better for the mother than inducing labor or doing a c-section, since it's less likely to cause complications if she gets pregnant again.

(Probably really ignorant, but:) Wouldn't a dead baby start to decompose / turn septic?

You'd think so, but AFAIK the womb is extremely... hermetic? Sterile? Germ-free? There's a word I'm looking for that I can't remember, but dead babies don't generally go off in there (though other weird things can happen, like turning to stone.)

Hawaiian Shirt wrote:

I can't get over the word "mix-up." Like it should be accompanied by a thrown pie or yakety sax.

An abortion ultrasound would be the acid test for if Yakety Sax can indeed make anything funny.

Though you do have to wonder what basis for legal action they're going to try. "Wrongful death" is obviously out (unless Australia has some equivalent of Unborn Victims of Violence? Anyone know?) and I don't think "you suck at medicine" is actually a legal basis.

gaijinguy wrote:

Sakurelf wrote:

Rabid Badger wrote:

PS-It's very common for doctors to make women whose baby dies in the latter months of pregnant wait until they go into labor naturally, instead of inducing. I had a friend whose second baby died when she was six months along, and she had to carry it another couple of months till her body finally went into natural labor. This strikes me as a horrific thing to do, but my sister says it's better for the mother than inducing labor or doing a c-section, since it's less likely to cause complications if she gets pregnant again.

(Probably really ignorant, but:) Wouldn't a dead baby start to decompose / turn septic?

You'd think so, but AFAIK the womb is extremely... hermetic? Sterile? Germ-free? There's a word I'm looking for that I can't remember, but dead babies don't generally go off in there (though other weird things can happen, like turning to stone.)

The uterus is indeed a sterile chamber (for lack of a better term). A mucous plug seals the cervix during pregnancy to prevent stuff from getting in, and so long as nothing gets past it (or gets in from the abdomen) a dead fetus can last for months (or years, as in gaijinguy's example). It's not unknown for a woman to give birth to twins, one alive and one obviously dead for months (obvious because development stopped at a much earlier point). Sometimes the woman's body reabsorbs such a fetus, especially early on, but other times it just sits there in the womb. It's not limited to humans, either--other mammals have the same thing happen.

gaijinguy wrote:

(though other weird things can happen, like turning to stone.)

Hawaiian Shirt wrote:

I can't get over the word "mix-up." Like it should be accompanied by a thrown pie or yakety sax.

The cock up happened earlier. Right at the start of the pregnancy.

gaijinguy wrote:

Though you do have to wonder what basis for legal action they're going to try. "Wrongful death" is obviously out (unless Australia has some equivalent of Unborn Victims of Violence? Anyone know?) and I don't think "you suck at medicine" is actually a legal basis.

I've really got no idea either, I've never heard of the Unborn Victims one before or anything similar to it. They might be suing based of the emotional trauma if there's some way they can do that.

I find this rather, ah..... How would one say... disappointing. In the sense that I was expecting a spin-tale reference in this story.

gaijinguy wrote:

Though you do have to wonder what basis for legal action they're going to try. "Wrongful death" is obviously out (unless Australia has some equivalent of Unborn Victims of Violence? Anyone know?) and I don't think "you suck at medicine" is actually a legal basis.

I believe the more professional version of that phrase would be "gross medical negligence," but essentially the same thing, and it may or may not come into play here.

I'm leaning toward hoping that it is, actually. Surely this case was more complex than the details provided in the article, but it's hard to imagine why the medical staff would have recommended a selective abortion at such a late stage in the pregnancy, when the outcome for the mother would have been the same either way, just plus or minus babies. Pretty much this:

Rabid Badger wrote:

Cruel as it might sound, they probably would have been better off if they'd just had her carry the babies to term and delivered them naturally. Yes, she still would've had to give birth to a baby she knew was going to be born dead, or die soon after birth, but the healthy one would have been more likely to survive the process, and at least she would have ended up with one healthy baby, instead of both of them dead.

Rabid Badger wrote:

Okay, 32 weeks is roughly eight months. Depending on what the twin that was sick was suffering from, they probably should have done the procedure BEFORE she was that far along.

They probably didn't know about it before then. Twins face some specific conditions and there are only so many people that really specialize in diagnosing and treating them. It could have taken her a while to find someone who could properly evaluate the problem and even then, there might not have been anything that could be done about it. Here's an example of such a situation. Bottom line? I don't care how long your sister has had that particular job; going on about what a woman you don't know should have done in a situation you know nothing about is in fact pretty cruel. I mean, it's pretty obvious it should have been dealt with sooner, but that doesn't mean it was feasible.

Quijotesca wrote:

Here's an example of such a situation.

File broken. Fix?

[quote="Reidmar"]

Quijotesca wrote:

Here's an example of such a situation.

Add x to the end

Jeez... EIGHT MONTHS. Why in the HELL did they wait eight months?

The whole thing sounds like one gigantic fuckup. GIGANTIC.

That shit shouldn't be happening in Austrailia.