During Caroline Malatesta’s fourth pregnancy, a new hospital opened in her area – Brookwood Medical Center. The new facility heavily advertised “natural childbirth” and allowing women to choose precisely how they wanted to give birth to their children.
Malatesta was intrigued by this new concept and went to speak to a doctor at Brookwood, interviewing him about their services and what they were promising. He confirmed everything she asked, and so she decided to switch from her original hospital to Brookwood.
A few weeks later, when Malatesta began to feel tightening and the contractions began, she called Brookwood to tell them she had just started going into labor. The nurses told her to wait for longer, until the contractions were closer together.
Malatesta did as she was told, but eventually asked her husband to take her to the hospital after a gush happened and everything became a “bloody show.”
Once they arrived at Brookwood, Malatesta recalled, “it became a back-and-forth of ‘But my doctor said I could’ and ‘But you don’t get to.’” Upon the nurses’ insistence, Malatesta relented and changed into a gown (even though she had clarified with her doctor that she was going to wear her own clothes) and climbed into the bed.
Malatesta kept asking the nurse why things were proceeding so differently from what she’d planned with her doctor, but the nurse “ignored [her], acting almost annoyed.” Malatesta later recalled, “it became very clear that this wasn’t about health or safety. It was a power struggle.”
When a big contraction came, Malatesta could no longer bear the pain and rose from her back to get onto all fours; it was what came naturally to her.
Her nurses, however, physically struggled with her by pulling her wrists out from under her. They flipped Malatesta back onto her back and even held her baby’s already-crowned head in Malatesta’s vagina to keep her from giving birth until she was on her back – where the nurses wanted her to be.
Six minutes later, when Malatesta’s doctor finally arrived, the nurses finally released the child’s head. Malatesta’s son, Jack, was born less than a minute later, healthy and energetic – but this wasn’t the end of the family’s problems.
In the months after Jack’s birth, Malatesta kept experiencing numbness, burning, pins and needles, as well as pain during sex. Eight months later, the pain flared, forcing Malatesta and her family to move in with her parents.
It didn’t take long for Malatesta and her doctor father to figure out that she had suffered permanent nerve damage from the episode during Jack’s birth.
Malatesta immediately reached out to Brookwood, demanding answers about everything that happened at Jack’s birth.
No one – not the patient advocate nor the vice president of the hospital – would give her a straightforward answer or properly acknowledged her concerns. Malatesta hadn’t wanted to do this, but she felt she had no choice but to file a lawsuit.
During the legal process, Malatesta was contacted by many women all over the country, telling her they’d had similar experiences. It was the support of all these women that motivated Malatesta to file the lawsuit and get her validation.
Now, two years after Jack’s birth, Malatesta has won her lawsuit – but she still suffers from nerve damage.
“I’m doing better today, but life is very different,” she said. “I am just in chronic, real, nerve pain in the most sensitive area of the body. Some days I'm a lot of pain, some days are better. You just take one day at a time.”
Although it’s a longshot, she’s hoping that someday she’ll be able to have her nerves repaired.
