Madelein Roux, 20, from Limpopo, wanted to give natural birth after a previous caesarean experience.
She hired a Pretoria midwife, Yolande Maritz, who suggested a stretch-and-sweep procedure to induce labour. The baby was stillborn.
Maritz is being investigated by the South African Nursing Council for alleged negligence and irregular use of drugs to induce labour, after some babies born at her You and Me Home Birth Centre were either stillborn or disabled.
Council CEO Sizo Mchunu said the council had received six complaints about the centre, some going back to 2016.
Roux is one of six women who complained to the council.
She began seeing Maritz in about week 19 of her pregnancy and had no health problems, she said. She was induced on August 12, about a week before her due date.
“Should I call your baby?” she was allegedly asked by Maritz on the day.
“We said yes. She [Maritz] performed a stretch-and-sweep on me. After she finished there was a wet spot on the linen saver. She said it’s probably amniotic fluid. She told me to get dressed and left the room, coming back with a glass of water. In the water was a white flakey powder, which she was stirring,” Roux said.
Her baby girl’s head was aligned. “A few more pushes and the baby was out. She [the baby] did not cry or move. I cannot remember who did chest compressions and who gave her air. They put a monitor on her foot and kept feeling her cord for a pulse.
“My daughter’s hands and feet were blue.” An ambulance arrived at 7pm, but 12 minutes later her baby was declared dead.
Carien Moller, 31, of Pretoria, said she was eight weeks pregnant when she began consulting Maritz.
Her baby girl was born brain-damaged, and Moller has laid a complaint of negligence, misuse of medication and assault with the council.
Jacobus Fouche, of JPA Venter Attorneys, representing Maritz, said his client was a highly qualified and skilled medical professional who was passionate about her work.
“She has great empathy for the parents concerned and shares in their grief,” he said. “She strongly denies any wrongdoing and/or negligence.”
He said Maritz would present medical records and proof to the council, “which will collaborate her version and which will exonerate her”.
Today marks three years since 28-year-old Tania Brown’s baby was born. Brown, who now lives in Ireland, said: “I call him my miracle baby after he spent five weeks and two days in the neonatal intensive care unit.”
Brown laid a complaint of birth injury, severe trauma, childbirth injury (oxygen deprivation and respiratory complications) and negligence against Maritz.
“We have suffered severe trauma because of this. We almost lost our son, and I almost lost my life — an absolutely horrifying thought,” said Brown.
“It is our dream to have another baby, but because of this we are so scared. I still have nightmares to this day of everything that happened.”
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