Note: When I originally wrote this article, there were no statements available except from the mother and father and those that represent them. I looked up several articles to do this blog. The hospital and the police department have now added statements to the story in backing their position. I obviously am concerned about the health and safety of babies. As a result of ‘new’ information, I have changed this blog and am adding a follow up blog on our own story of hospital staff bullies. Look for it soon!
I’ve written an incendiary title and I know it. This is purely my opinion based on personal experience and my own thoughts–not on scientific fact. I admit that I don’t even know all of the facts of the situation as they weren‘t available.
A mother and father decided it was time for their newborn baby to go home. The baby had already been there two days. The mom was still in the hospital recovering from a cesarean birth. While generally it is normal for the baby to stay in the hospital with the mother, this couple for whatever reason decided it was time for daddy to take the new baby home.
The baby was wearing a device with an alarm so when the father left the floor with the baby, the alarm sounded and hospital staff called security. An off duty security officer, believing that the child was in danger, shot the father with a tazer and caused him to drop the baby to the ground. The father apprently was so angered, he had repeatedly made suggestions that “he would take the baby hostage.”
The baby is fine and the father is charged with child endangerment. The mother, watched the scene unfold from her hospital bed and has said, “The only person who endangered my child was that police officer.” And I have to agree. The police officer clearly put the child in harm’s way even though the father really should’ve found a way to work with the hospital.
Hospitals Still Don’t Get It
The family told the hospital they were going to leave. The hospital says that they told the family that they had to stay. The father perhaps didn’t know it was his right to leave AMA (against medical advice.) Perhaps he didn’t realize that he had other recourses like a hospital judiciary committe or a community advocate. He should’ve known that alarms would sound. Regardless, my point is, the baby was his, he and the mother agreed the baby should go home. . .and so that’s what he did.
Since when did parents lose their rights over their children such that a family can be bullied into staying when it’s against their judgment? This has happened to us personally, and we felt bullied into abiding by certain hospital policies that didn’t make sense to us and were not in the best interest of our child. This happens to other parents I know especially in regards to breastfeeding.
Hospital staff need to realize that they are there to ‘help’ the family care for the child. If the infant really needed to stay for a proven medical reason. . .then there should’ve been discussion to that end. Perhaps I’m wrong but I imagine that if the hospital had demonstrated a willingness to discuss the issue and hear the family out. . .this whole scenario could’ve been avoided. For me, this is another good reason to birth at home. Perhaps some day, hospitals will learn to be more family friendly and holistic in their approach to child birth.