Doctors Accidentally Give Mom ‘Horrific’ Emergency C-Section

After six months of recovery, a mother of four is sharing her upsetting birth story — in which doctors gave her an emergency C-section only to find, when they cut her open, that her son had already been born naturally.

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Amber Hughes (pictured above), of Leicester, England, told Yahoo Parenting in a statement that she had gone into premature labor in July when she was 30 weeks pregnant, and that after 36 hours in labor and remaining only 3 centimeters dilated, doctors rushed her into the operating room for a cesarean section because they feared infection.

But Hughes, 21, said the doctors were shocked to find no baby in her uterus after cutting her open because she had apparently delivered him vaginally at the precise moment the surgery began. Doctors only discovered the newborn, named Olly, in the sheets after he started crying.

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“It was horrific,” she said, regarding the birth at Leicester Royal Infirmary. “I was expecting my bundle of joy to be passed to me, but instead I watched panic spread over doctors’ faces. For two whole minutes they were truly baffled until they heard little cries coming from my lap and pulled up the sheet to find Olly lying in between my legs. I wondered if it was the drugs I was on and I was imagining it, not only was I cut open unnecessarily, but my poor baby was under a sheet alone.”

Newborn Olly. (Photo: Amber Hughes/Talk to the Press)

The mom, already a parent to three other children ages 2, 4, and 6 with partner Daniel, 25, added, “I didn’t even receive an apology. The doctor just explained that my baby had already begun his descent in the birth canal when they cut me open, and it was an odd situation. I now have a visible scar that wasn’t needed, and I’m still recovering from my C-section.”

Elaine Broughton, head of midwifery for Leicester’s Hospitals, said in a statement released to Yahoo Parenting: “We were really very worried about Amber and her baby as there were signs of infection and her water had broken quite some time ago, yet the delivery didn’t appear to be progressing. The decision to carry out an emergency caesarean is never taken lightly but we thought it was for the best in this case. Clearly, between the decision to operate being taken and Amber’s arrival in theatre, Mother Nature had once again taken over. We’re looking at the chain of events in detail and will share our findings with the parents. We’re sorry that this happened but glad that mum and baby are doing well.”

Olly with mom and dad. (Photo: Amber Hughes/Talk to the Press)

Amber recalled how after the surgery doctors frantically moved around her bed, looking for the newborn. “I was literally going into meltdown,” she said. “Where had my baby gone? It couldn’t just disappear.”

A doctor later explained to the couple that as they performed the successful C-section, Olly had already begun his descent in the birth canal. “For two minutes they had lost my baby,” she said. “That is just ludicrous.”

Isabel Blumberg, MD, an obstetrician at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, tells Yahoo Parenting she has never heard of such a situation before and finds it “bizarre.” Still, she says, on one occasion she had called for a patient to have a C-section and then gotten bumped from an operating room. While awaiting a free one, Blumberg explains, she reexamined her patient, found that she was 10 centimeters dilated, and canceled the surgery. “That happens,” she says. “Sometimes we call C-sections prematurely.”

With Hughes, she supposes it “was one of those weird flukes,” noting that it is entirely possible that the experienced mom didn’t feel her son being born.

Hughes, Daniel, and their four children. (Photo: Amber Hughes/Talk to the Press)

“This was her fourth baby,” Blumberg says. “He was small and, instinctively, the body will push it out. Her uterus contracted it out as they opened her up, and she didn’t even feel it with the level of anesthesia required for a C-section.” Between when the need for surgery was declared and the first cut was made, she adds, Hughes “transitioned in a very short period of time.”

And until the baby cried, doctors would have had no reason to think it was anywhere else but inside the mom. “They’re just looking at the abdomen. You don’t see the vagina during a C-section,” Blumberg says, describing the setup, where the mom is draped everywhere. “You’re only looking at that one spot.”

Gil Weiss, MD, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at Northwestern University and an ob-gyn in Chicago, agrees that the situation is “definitely unusual” but also notes that labor conditions can change between the time of declaring a cesarean section and actually performing it. “It’s happened to all of us before that something’s changed and that she’s now ready to deliver, and so we wheel her out of the OR.”

Blumberg says she understands Hughes being shaken and wanting an apology. “I think she has a right to be upset — she had an unnecessary surgery,” she says. “There would definitely be a lawsuit [in this country].”

Weiss, though, stresses the final outcome of little Olly’s birth when asked whether Hughes should be angry or not. “That depends what her goal was,” he says. “If it was to have a healthy baby, healthy mom, that’s what happened. If it was to have a vaginal delivery, she might be a little bit disappointed.”

(Top photo: Amber Hughes/Talk to the Press)

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