Mother in court

“Child could have been perfectly healthy”

A healthy child is the wish of every mother - after a fatal home birth in the Hausruckviertel, the mother gave birth all alone, her daughter is severely disabled

(Bild: MANUEL PUGA - stock.adobe.com)

Was it a reckless and irresponsible act or an unforeseen, problematic accidental birth? That is the question to be answered in the trial against a 38-year-old mother of four at Wels Regional Court. Her now one-year-old daughter is severely disabled as a result of the birth. She faces one to ten years in prison.

"Negligent", "irresponsible" - this is how the public prosecutor described the defendant's behavior in her opening statement. She had explicitly spoken out against the induction of labor and, in the end, against close monitoring, even though the baby had to be turned twice due to breech presentation and the expectant mother (38) had been informed about the risks for her and the child. "The child could be completely healthy," says the public prosecutor. But the girl is still unable to breathe on her own or swallow well, and is physically and mentally severely disabled.

"Innocent and not negligent"
The defense lawyer counters that his client does not reject conventional medicine and that it was an "unforeseeable fateful" course of events. "Looking back, I would have done many things differently," says the defendant in the first interrogation, but pleads not guilty and also sees no negligence.

"Bathroom turned into a delivery room"
The public prosecutor explained that the defendant had also given birth to two of her three other children alone, while the lawyer countered that the son had been born by accident and there was no time to go to hospital and that a home birth had been planned for the second youngest daughter, but the midwife arrived too late because she was looking after another woman at the time of the birth. The prosecutor explained that during the birth of the fourth child, the mother had "turned the bathroom into a delivery room" and "covered it with towels", and a camera had also been placed on the washing machine. "This was just to unload it," said the defendant, adding that it was not planned to film the birth - but the camera had since broken and was now just a child's toy. The lawyer says that no home birth was planned, that the birth happened unpredictably quickly after the shower and doubts that his client had the emotional ability to raise the alarm by cell phone.

"It made a splash"
"I always have towels in the bathroom", says the mother, and after showering "it made a splash" - meaning the rupture of the membranes. Her cell phone was not in the bathroom - "I don't know why I didn't take it into the bathroom". In general, she had difficulty remembering the birth. "Only that I could hardly move and at some point the body looked out" and "the child didn't move when it was there", the accused reported tearfully. She doesn't know how she got to the cell phone to call the child's father. He would have called him because she knew that the child's father was a paramedic and "knew what to do". "But I knew it was an emergency and I needed the ambulance."

Child's father incriminates mother
The judge asks the accused whether a home birth was planned. She denies this, but a medical report states that it was planned: "I can't remember that." According to the public prosecutor, the child's father and ex-partner, a paramedic, also refused to help with the birth because the expectant mother only wanted him to be present - "Then I'll do it all by myself," he is said to have replied and will also be questioned as a witness at the trial. "That's not true," says the defendant, who says that the relationship with her "ex" was difficult. On the day of the birth, she did not tell him to go away with the other three children, only that he should "take care" of them because she could not sleep well that night and was tired. The defendant explains that there are contradictions in his and her statements by saying that the child's father is not a native German speaker and that he may have misunderstood some things and that he "didn't want the child at all".

"Didn't you make any preparations?"
"The word lethal appears twice in the transcript," the judge reproaches the defendant, who quotes from the records of several doctors in which the 38-year-old was informed about the risks for mother and child and asks why no preparations were made for the care of the other three children despite the imminent due date. Especially because she refused to induce labor at two follow-up appointments at the Kepler University Hospital in Linz within three days. "Because there was no childcare", "Because it was her daughter's birthday", is written in the records. "You didn't manage to organize care for the other two small children within three days, how would you have done it if the birth had occurred spontaneously?" asked the prosecutor. The mother in tears: "I would have called through." 

Motion to reject the expert witness
During the course of the trial day, several witnesses, the child's father and doctors were heard. A motion by the defense attorneys to reject the medical expert because he is the ward manager at the KUK and knew about the charges against the mother was rejected. The public prosecutor's accusation of assault with serious permanent consequences carries a penalty of one to ten years imprisonment, the defendant has no criminal record to date and the presumption of innocence applies.