A couple in Italy are
planning to sue health services after their baby boy was
unexpectedly born without legs on Christmas Day.
The boy's mother, 34, and father say that during the
pregnancy no medical specialist spotted any problem and no sign
of malformation showed up on medical scans.
Their lawyers have sent letters to a private doctor in
Parma who followed the pregnancy and other health and hospital
authorities, informing them of the legal action. They are aiming
to check over documentation and the sequence of checks to see
where responsibility should lie.
"It's an ordeal psychologically, for all the family," said
lawyer Alessandro Falzoni.
Italy's maternity care has come under the spotlight
recently in the wake of the deaths of five women in childbirth
in seven days - four of them in hospitals, one of them in a home
birth.
Gynaecologist associations have criticised the government
for allowing the country's maternity wards to become chronically
understaffed, while recognising that Italy still has one of the
lowest maternal childbirth mortality rates in the West.
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