An Edmonton couple is advising expectant parents and doctors to be more cautious after the home birth of their son.
Emabete Tadesse says she was sent home after receiving induction medication at the Royal Alexandra hospital, only to give birth hours later.
She said she was crying but the doctor told her to come back the next day.
“’My body’s ready,’ I told her. Doctor, she don’t listen to me.”
Tadesse’s husband, Ephram Bati, said they went back to the hospital again but were sent away.
“It’s scary. Every time I remember the things I’m scared.”
Bati said his wife was sleeping in the bedroom when she called for him to help her.
“When I take her up from the bed she was not able to walk and she fell down on her knees,” he explained.
“At that time she told me ‘I feel something come out from my body.’
“I take her from the ground and we start walking to the washroom.”
He says it was at that time he could see the baby’s head so he put his hands out just as the baby was born.
“When I take the baby for the first time he was crying,” he said, adding he slowly helped Tadesse back to bed.
“The first thing [I thought was] what can I do for this baby? And the second thing is how can I do that thing?
“I put the baby on the bed and the first thing I did, I cleaned his nose and mouth.”
Then he called 911 for an ambulance.
“The ambulance come and they do what they do here. The last thing I cut the umbilical cord and they took the baby and her to hospital.”
Bati said he never expected anything like that to happen to his family.
“I am a mechanical worker but I don’t know about these things.
After she returned to the hospital, Tedesse says the doctor apologized to her.
She say ‘oh, sorry, sorry.’ It’s not enough, sorry.’”
Both say they believe their faith helped them through the ordeal.
“If I was not here with her, what will happen,” Bati asked.
“At that time the doctors not help my wife but God, he help us,” he smiled.
“In my mind everything is like a dream,” Tedesse said.
“Now I see my baby I’m so very happy.”
Alberta Health Services tells CTV that after a patient is induced they are monitored in the hospital for a couple of hours. Patients may then be discharged and given instructions about what to expect and when to return to hospital.
They also say doctors use their own judgment when sending patients home and patients are not sent home if they are showing signs of labour.
Bati says hospital staff need to trust their patients more.
“The hospital, they must listen to their patients.”
With files from Amanda Anderson
