Forceps delivery crushed baby's head and .,..

Olivia Marie Coats lived for five days after her
parents allege a forceps delivery crushed her little
skull and caused brain death. Now, they have
launched a Facebook campaign to stop the use of forceps in all births. Allen Coats, 25, and his fiancee Rachel Melancon,
24, say they will sue their obstetrician, Dr. George
T. Backardjiev, but not The Medical Center of Southeast Texas, where their daughter was born on Dec. 28. The baby was transferred that day to
Houston's Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, which confirmed the baby died on Jan. 2. Coats, a pipe fitter and the baby's father, told
ABCNews.com, "I can't bring it to myself to talk to
people at the moment -- sorry." "We're not mad at hospital, this is not their fault. It
is one man's fault," Angie Coats, the baby's
grandmother told ABCNews.com. "We only want
justice for Olivia; we want the person responsible,
which is the doctor. We don't want the hospital being
shunned. The hospital is great. The nurses were wonderful. It's not their fault." Angie Coats said the young parents were
devastated by the loss. She said the parents had
repeatedly asked the doctor to perform a cesarean
in advance of the Christmas Day due date because
of the large size of the baby, but he refused. Grieving families of stillborns find healing on
Facebook. "Rachel had a normal, healthy pregnancy and the
day she went in to see if she could be induced, it
was already after Christmas," she told
ABCNews.com. "The baby was so gigantic inside of
her. She asked, 'Can you please give me a C-
section? This baby isn't coming out of me.'" Olivia weighed 7 pounds, 14.9 ounces and 22
inches long at birth. Angie Coats, 43, of Bridge City, Texas, said her
daughter-in-law was "itty bitty" -- 4-feet-11 and 95
pounds -- before she was pregnant. "[Backardjiev] said, 'No, you don't want a C-section.
You'll have a scar," said Coats, who was present at
the birth. "During her delivery, the baby's heart rate
kept going up. He said, 'One more hour, one more
hour.' Her water broke, but it was 18 hours until the
delivery. [Rachel] was running a 103 fever... Five hours passed, then he came in and she started to
push. But she was so worn out and the baby wasn't
even in the birth canal." Coats alleges that the baby was face up and
Backardjiev tried unsuccessfully to turn her with his
hands. "When he couldn't do that, he took the small forceps
to try to pull the baby out. He kept going and even
put his foot up on the bed trying to pull," she said.
"He was turning and twisting and she would never
come out. He put the forceps one way and the
other. When he touched the top and side of the skull, we heard a pop, like clay cracking in pottery
and heard her skull crush." Mothers support midwife who pleaded guilty to
negligence during delivery. Olivia was ultimately delivered by emergency C-
section, according to the family, but they allege it
was too late. "My son said, 'I don't think my baby is
alive.' She was not breathing and she never cried,"
said Angie Coats. She said the medical staff told the family the baby
was alive and would be transferred to Hermann
Hospital. But once the family arrived at Hermann, they allege
that doctors told them Olivia was not breathing on
her own and had suffered "numerous skull
fractures." ABCNews.com twice called the office of
Backardjiev and spoke to an assistant, asking for
comment. But the obstetrician did not return calls. Matt Roberts, the CEO of The Medical Center of
Southeast Texas, said in a statement that the
baby's death "rips at our hearts and words are
insufficient to express how much our sympathies go
to this loving family." The statement added, "While patient privacy and
peer review restrictions prevent the hospital from
commenting specifically, the hospital administration
and independent medical staff immediately initiated
a review of all aspects of this case. Our
independent medical staff leadership shares in the hospital's commitment to take all necessary actions
to understand why this happened." A spokesman for Children's Memorial Hermann
Hospital said Olivia was transferred by Life Flight to
its neonatal intensive care unit on the day of the
birth. The hospital expressed its "deepest
sympathies" to the family, but said patient privacy
rules prevented it from commenting on the case. Angie Coats said that the family was by Olivia's
side at Hermann Hospital at her death. "They took her off life support and it took two to
three hours for her heart to stop as my son lay in
the room," she said. "I gave her a bath and they
took her down to the morgue." The family has urged others to call for an end to
forceps deliveries nationwide. So far, their Facebook
page has garnered 55,000 "likes." ABC's Dr. Jennifer L. Ashton, an obstetrician and
gynecologist, said that a forceps delivery can be
risky. "Forceps are used less often today versus vacuum
extraction, but skull fracture is a known risk of this
procedure," Ashton said. "Often times there is no
other option when delivery needs to occur and even
a C-section could be not an option." But Ashton said forceps should not be outlawed. "In
the right hands they can save a baby's life," she
said. "It takes a lot of skill and practice to perform a
forceps delivery and most younger [obstetricians]
have been trained in vacuum extraction." Olivia's parents decided to donate the baby's heart
valve to save another baby and her tissue behind
her legs and knees was donated for skin grafts.
"Something good will come of this," said Coats. "They are doing great," she said of her son and his
wife. "I have never seen so much strength and
courage in two people in my whole life. All I hear is
they want to help someone else. They want to help
other parents and make sure this never happens
again."