Gee, what a sad story. As I see it, he voluntarily entered the Delivery Room and was merely calming and steadying his wife and passed out. Had he been unsteady during the procedure where his wife was concerned, she would have been injured/affected by the delicate injection but she was not.

I've often wondered why hospitals let the husband/significant other cut the umbilical cord. Not only would that guarantee drooling, incoherent mumbling, loss of bladder control and me in an unresponsive heap on the floor, but I also would imagine that it is a much more risky endeavor for a hospital to permit.

This is a very sad, but ultimately frivolous, litigation.
---------------------
Reuters
Updated: 6:18 a.m. ET July 8, 2005


LOS ANGELES - A California woman is suing a hospital for wrongful death because her husband fainted and suffered a fatal injury after helping delivery room staff give her a pain-killing injection.

Jeanette Passalaqua, 32, filed the suit against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Southern California Permanente Medical Group Inc. in San Bernardino County state court last week.

In June 2004, Passalaqua’s husband, Steven Passalaqua, was asked by Kaiser staff to hold and steady his wife while an employee inserted an epidural needle into her back, court papers said.

The sight of the needle caused Steven Passalaqua, 33, to faint and he fell backward, striking his head on an aluminum cap molding at the base of the wall.

Jeanette Passalaqua delivered the couple’s second child, a boy, later that day. Steven Passalaqua, however, suffered a brain hemorrhage as a result of his fall and died two days later, the lawsuit said.

The suit seeks unspecified damages related to Steven Passalaqua’s death and to Jeanette Passalaqua’s emotional distress at being widowed with two young children.

Because Passalaqua was solicited by Kaiser to assist in the epidural, the lawsuit said, the hospital “owed him a duty to exercise reasonable care to prevent foreseeable injuries resulting from his participation.”

A spokesman for Oakland, California-based Kaiser Permanente called the death “a tragic accident.”

“Some of the allegations in the lawsuit are simply that --allegations. The legal process is under way and we should respect that,” said Kaiser spokesman Jim Anderson.

Won't comment on this case - seems ridiculous to me, but then I'm not squeamish.

About cutting the cord - My first child was born in a small country hospital. When the time came, my husband was standing nearby, just looking at the baby, not expecting to have any part in procedures. The doctor was holding the scissors, and did a sort of gunfighter flip, so that they were suddently facing him, with the handles out. He got such a kick out of her presentation, he went ahead, no problem. The whole thing really tickled him, he mentioned it often, and when our second child was born, in a busy city hospital, he was ready and waiting. When it looked as if the doctor did not intend to offer him the scissors, he interupted "Excuse me, I think this is MY job".

Eh, it seems ridiculous to me, and I AM squeamish. But that's because I believe people should know their own limits, and this guy should have let someone know he might not be able to handle it. There would be plenty of nurses there, even a male nurse, to help steady his wife, and he could, instead, place himself in front of her and talk to her, where he was safe from actually witnessing the event. I find it highly unlikely that suddenly, without any foreknowledge of that particular weakness in yourself, you'd just succomb to it.

But even so, having been through it all, and being lucky to have a husband who is solid and strong, even in the face of worry and weariness, (pardon my alliteration...) I really don't seen anything wrong with hospitals continuing on as they have been. Once the umbilical cord is tied, the cutting is usually of little to no consequence, so it'd be tough for even the most squeamish of fathers, or significant others, or friends, or whomever is there helping the mother if she's lucky enough to have someone, to mess it up.

When they gave me my epidural, I was on my 27th hour of being awake. I'd been in labor for 9 hours and things weren't progressing as fast as they could. I had finally dosed off, so my husband had left the room for a while to talk to my parents and let me try to rest in quiet. After only about 15 minutes, a contraction woke me, startled out of sleep and in pain, and my husband was not with me, and it was that moment the nurses chose to come administer my epidural... My husband heard someone (likely the anesthesiologist) paged to my room number, and until then, despite my fear and pleas, the nurses had made no attempt to find him, though he was 15 feet from the nurses station. By the time he got to my room I was in a literal panic, as I'm phobically afraid of needles. Just imagining what it might have been like if, worrying my husband might have an adverse reaction, they made him stand aside while some stranger helped me is almost too much.

I have only had one of what we used to call a "saddle block" but to tell the truth - I had been in labor for so long and was in such pain that I hardly remember the needle. Not feeling much afterward was a real relief, though. I started falling asleep in between contractions [ only seconds apart by then!] My other two births, unfortunately, were stat C -sections.

Yes, the idea that because of lawsuits like this, some hospitals may not allow fathers in the delivery room is indeed a scary thought.
My own children were born (relatively) quickly and easily. Although I was happy that my husband was there, I could have gotten through without him. From his point of view, though, these were among the most important experiences of his life. I hate to think that men who want to be part of it could be denied this by this nonsense.

And as for my husband's reaction to being at a 'surprise C-section'? He was a real trooper! He had only expected to witness an ordinary birth - not a major operation performed post haste.But he refused to leave, and the nurse told me later that he looked pretty pale -but steady!

I honestly believe all men should witness the birth of their children. There is no other experience in life that so changes a person, allowing them to understand life and death,- quietly bringing everything in life to a realistic perspective.