synopsis

  • A baby boy in Coimbatore crashes to the floor after 9-month pregnant woman delivers in standing position.
  • The woman had a sudden pain in her lower abdomen, but she ignored the signs assuming they were false labour pains.
  • The baby was apparently alive at birth, but had no signs of life after it hit the floor.

In a bizarre incident, a baby boy crashed to the floor and died, after his mother went in labour in a standing position. The incident happened at a home in Kalapatti near Coimbatore on Tuesday night. Incidentally, the baby was declared brought dead at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital, early on Wednesday. A postmortem was also conducted on Thursday. 25-year old Eshwari was in her ninth month of pregnancy with her second child.

She suddenly had a shooting pain in her lower abdomen, which she presumed to be a sign of false labour. She went to use the bathroom at around 11:30 pm when she delivered the baby at the doorstep. Her husband Lingathurai, speaking to the Times of India, said, "Just after she opened the bathroom door, she screamed in pain and almost instantly the baby fell out of her. The baby whose head came out first hit the floor and fell before we could rush to pick him up."

He further narrated how he and other neighbours rushed to Eshwari's aid when they heard her cries. They immediately dialled for 108 to call for an ambulance to GH. He further added, "I did hear the baby make a noise, resembling a cry, when I was having in my arms, but he went silent after. In the ambulance, the nurse told me that they could not feel a heartbeat or pulse in him, but I kept my hopes high."  He said, "However, by then the baby's head had swollen to a big size."

When they reached the hospital, the baby was declared brought dead and the expected cause was cited to be delay in inhaling oxygen, coupled with head injury. The doctors who were handling the woman's pregnancy said that she was anemic. They suggest that the wife could have suffered a case of precipitous labour and delivery. This is a condition where the child is born after less than two hours of labour.

Doctors further said, "There is also a chance that she had mild labour pains a few hours earlier but did not inform her family properly. Her anemic condition could have also led to goiter which again sometimes causes a precipitious labour." The couple already have a six-year old daughter.