“He has a dislocation of the shoulder that will heal in a few days. He was a kid. very bigThat’s normal”. Silvia Conejo remembers the words they said to her after giving birth in Badajoz as if they had been said to her just today.
Mateo was born 4,440 pounds and 55 centimeters tall. They showed it to father Tomás. “Look at a fat kid so it was hard for him to get out.” After several control tests, they all went to the factory. “When the boy came into the room, his arm was limp, it was drooping,” his mother, Silvia, recalls. “It was a rag handle just like this one.”
“We were ‘calm’ until discharge,” says Silvia, when a pediatrician raised her hands to her head. This was not a relocation. “He told us: what happened when your baby took it outcalled ‘P’Obstetric Arm Analysis (PBO) and it is serious. I don’t know if your son will move his arm again.”
six operations
his name is Matthew She is five years old and has already had six surgeries.. He needs daily rehabilitation, constant care, physiotherapy, neuromodulation. His PBO is complete, he has no healthy nerves, he has a 45% disability.. What, who, how. Your family wants to know. Forensically, the only thing they ignore is that it’s a genetic disease. It happened during childbirth, that’s the only thing proven.
His family has struggled for answers since early days: “Mérida’s contentious No. 2 trial concluded that malfeasance could not be proven, but no one explains why this happened to our son,” Silvia complains. They went to the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, where they had a setback.”they didn’t even listen to us“. Since the decision is final, Mateo’s family cannot apply to Strasbourg Court as they wish, but they have started a campaign to get the boy’s case to Congress: “We need 1,500 signatures for them to listen to us. It’s been a constant struggle since he was born and we can’t stop.”
gestational diabetes
“I’m going into labor on October 27, 2017,” Silvia begins. “We arrived at the Badajoz Maternity and Children’s Hospital shortly before eight in the morning. I have contractions… Everything is normal.” They decide to go inside, Mateo arrives. “They examine me, but they don’t do an ultrasound. gestational diabetesthat’s why they told me that the child will grow up. They told me the ultrasound machine was old, not working well, but that didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how much you weigh, because all children are born.”
Preparation begins, dilatation is correct, everything continues in its normal course. “They told me I said yes if I wanted to have an epidural. And when it was time to remove the baby, they told me to start doing pujos.
“Push Harder”
Hours passed and Mateo could not adapt (fly). The proposals were not enough for him to spawn, because he was not on the plane he was supposed to be. “I was listening, the boy can’t fit his head properly because he’s big. At that time, he called his midwife friends and gave their opinion.” Chaos has begun.
Silvia recounts the moments she lived, just as she did in her case. “They laid me down, put my legs on the shelf and told me i have to push harder Otherwise they would take oxytocin to make me feel more contractions. I told them to do what they had to do, that it was seven o’clock, that I had been pushing since two-three.” Mateo couldn’t get high and Silvia couldn’t give birth.
injury
Mateo did not come out. At 7:30 pm, they decide to use tools such as suction cups. “Four to seven p.m…. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had an hour and a little midwife climbed on me.squeezing my ribs, trying to position the child (a Kristeller maneuver not recommended by WHO)”, blaming Silvia. herself, she couldn’t, it didn’t fit…” says her mother.
“They pull and place it with the suction cup. As seen in the partogram, the child is placed with the suction cup and tools should not be used to position the baby, which was another bad decision,” she says.
After the head goes out, shoulder dystocia occurs (due to its size, they do not go in and collide, cannot get out). “AND From there they have ten minutes to make the right maneuver.as long as the child not experiencing fetal distress. They look at Mateo and he wasn’t there, he was fine – the gynecologist confirmed this in his statement before the judge. So they pulled the boy between two people. It was supposed to be removed, but since Mateo was good, it had to be built and removed. child had the least hurtful outcome. Sometimes and this happens, they even break the baby’s collarbone. Another thing that happened: rupture of all nerves of the plexus and an irreversible paralysis“.
Silvia also suffered: “I ended up with over sixty stitches, a sagging, and a tear that was still open.”
“Matthew is serious”
“They told us they did some damage, but that’s normal.” After the birth, family and friends came. Everyone declined to comment that there was something wrong with the baby’s arm.
Without moving an arm or hand, correcting his position, and showing no pain, Mateo left the hospital with his family on Monday. Shortly before they did, a pediatrician stopped them. He told them about stroke, disability, surgeries, rehabilitation. “Mateo is in serious condition, I can’t believe they didn’t tell him in the delivery room. He called the traumatologist and told us.”
The first operation came with six months. “When they opened it, they saw the scope. They said it was one of the few injuries they saw. It would require multiple interventions. Not to make it look good, but to provide the highest possible functionality. He told us: ‘get used to the idea of it. it will be a constant and lasting struggle until the child is five or six years old’. It was so. The surgeon at Hospital de La Paz (Madrid) didn’t lie to me.”
court fight
Mateo’s family faced two struggles, health and legal. “We started with a request in Patient Care, no one responded to us.” Treatments, rehabilitation, excursions… Mateo’s needs meant an extra human and financial effort for his parents.. “We spent more than 30,000 euros.”
Social security did not cover everything the child needed. “When did it happen we start an inheritance case so Mateo has everything he needs, as he comes in completely healthy and this undoubtedly happens at the time of birth. We want Health to pay for Mateo’s treatment. We know that there are similar or equal resolutions with predictive results”.
They did not give reasons in the Mérida court, “claiming that these could happen.” Inside The Extremadura High Court of Justice said: “We lost the case and they even ordered us to pay 20,000 euros in procedural costs.“. And in the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court “they do not accept our appeal for the transaction and sentence us to pay another 2,000 euros.”
“Harmful result cannot be provenThe decision of the Supreme Court of Justice, accessed by OPEN CASE, the event and investigation portal of Prensa Ibérica, concludes with the statement “As a direct result of the decisions taken.
No response from hospital
OPEN CASE contacted the hospital where Mateo was born to get a version without a response. He also sent an email to the Extremadura Health Service (SES) but was not answered.
The professionals who assisted Silvia argued during the trial that they “always acted right” and that this could happen. mother herself, pushing, causing injury. According to the report given by the doctor who attended the birth, Mateo’s mother “close legs tight after sticking the baby’s head out”. Something Silvia denies: “It’s impossible because I’m using an epidural.”
Mateo is a happy kid but his struggle is constant. “She was always a fighter. Her father went through chemotherapy for 5 years. It was a miracle she got pregnant. test tube baby But he came.” I know nobody wanted this to happen, but it did. My child was healthy and besides not getting help, we will pay close to twenty thousand euros to the hospital that caused his injury.”