DUBAI: This video captures a young pregnant woman who killed herself after begging her family to let her have a cesarean because she was in so much pain – her baby’s head too large for a natural birth.
It was not long after this security camera footage was recorded that she threw herself from a fifth floor window and plummeted to her death.
Under Chinese law the family must first give their permission before a cesarean can be performed, but in the case of the 27-year-old, named only as Ma, it appears this permission was not given.
She was 41 weeks pregnant.
In the video footage she can be seen shuffling around the maternity ward of a hospital in northern China clearly in discomfort.
At one point she can be seen crouching and doubling over – aided by unidentified people. Reports have suggested that she was at this stage in immense pain.
According to reports doctors examined her and concluded that she needed a cesarean as she would not be able to give birth naturally.
Doctors had told her a natural birth “would have been very risky,” according to the China Economic Daily newspaper.
But reports claim it was advice ignored by the woman’s family who insisted on a natural birth.
A hospital spokesman said: “The family said they understood, but refused the surgery, and wanted to keep the situation under observation.”
It is a claim denied by the woman’s husband, identified only as “Yan”, who told the Beijing Youth Daily: “We did not disagree to a cesarean.”
Yan told the newspaper he was concerned after his wife twice left the ward in pain, asking doctors to find someone “familiar with cesarean procedures.”
Sometime later she fell to her death after repeated attempts to leave the medical center – her unborn baby also died in the fall.
According to reports, her medical notes read: “The pregnant woman twice walked out of the ward to tell her family that she wanted a cesarean because she could no longer bear the pain, but the family continued to insist on a natural delivery.”
C-sections were commonplace in China, they were seen as a less painful way of giving birth.
But since the one-child policy was waived in October 2015 the government has been encouraging women to opt for natural births.
This video shows the woman shuffling around, clearly in severe discomfort, before being led out of shot.
