Russia – 22nd March, 2019: A young woman suffered 'excruciating pain' and died in a coma shortly after giving birth when an inexperienced obstetrician allegedly ripped out her placenta in Russia.
Alisa Tepikina, 22, smiled at seeing her first child, a girl, but was left screaming in pain as the recently-qualified medic apparently pulled roughly on the umbilical cord.
The placenta did not separate from her inverted uterus in the normal way and she fell into a coma, suffered a cardiac arrest and died.
A criminal probe into possible medical negligence has been launched in the case in Nizhneserginskaya, in Russia's Sverdlovsk region.
Alisa's father Dmitry Malyukov, 47, said: 'We have been told that the 'birth' of the placenta did not occur.
'The midwife called in a doctor. The obstetrician, aged 27 and recently qualified, began to pull the umbilical cord roughly.
'My daughter was suffering, she was screaming in pain. But the doctor paid no attention.'
The family have friends working on the medical staff in the hospital, who witnessed what happened and gave evidence to police, he said.
'She tugged the umbilical cord with real force - the uterus was inverted,' he said.
'Alisa screamed so loud that she could be heard throughout the hospital. This is like something from the Middle Ages.
'This caused a pain shock, severe bleeding, and she fell into a coma.'
He was told that Alisa suffered a cardiac arrest and never regained consciousness.
A helicopter was put on standby to rush the mother to a major surgical hospital - but she was deemed too weak to fly.
The official cause of her death was registered as severe shock caused by pain, said her mother Svetlana Cheshko, 42.
Soon after the birth her husband Nikolay Tepikin, 22, had accompanied the baby to another hospital because the girl had a minor neck injury.
When he returned several hours later he was told his wife was seriously ill and allowed to sit with her.
It emerged that Alisa was already dead.
'Her eyes were covered in blindfolds, her jaw was tied up,' he said.
'There were tubes everywhere for a lung ventilator but no machine nearby. I reached out to hold her hand - and it was cold.'
The obstetrician in the case was suspended and the Russian Investigative Committee confirmed a criminal case has been launched.
Elena Barannikova, head physician at Nizhneserginskaya hospital, claimed her doctors were not to blame and the 'uterus spontaneously inverted'.
She said: 'It is rare, but it happens.'
Alisa's grandmother Lyudmila said: 'I called the hospital and asked if Alisa saw her daughter before she died.
'It was important for me to know.
'They told me what she had seen her child, and smiled.'
Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6838045/First-time-mother-22-dies-excruciating-pain-Russia.html