Mother gives birth outside clinic after being told to return later

March 21, 2022

Workers clean up outside the Raymundo Abarca Alarcón General Hospital after the birth.

A mother in Guerrero gave birth outside a clinic on Saturday after being told that the birth was still hours away.

Lisel, 24, arrived with her mother and husband, Margarito de la Cruz Sánchez, at the Guerrero children’s and mother’s hospital in Chilpancingo at 6 a.m., but was told she wasn’t ready to give birth. Medical staff instructed her to return in two hours, according to de la Cruz.

Due to her intense pain, the family opted to travel across the city to the emergency ward at Raymundo Abarca Alarcón General Hospital arriving there at 7:30 a.m. Lisel was attended to by medical personnel, but was again told that her dilations were still in an early phase and that she should return two hours later.

Lisel collapsed at the entrance of the emergency ward suffering from intense pain. She started to bleed and gave birth to a baby girl on the floor without any medical support at around 8:20 a.m.

However, the Guerrero Health Ministry gave a different version of events. In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, it said that Lisel was never refused medical attention and was responsible for the manner of the birth. It explained that staff had told Lisel to walk inside the hospital to accelerate her dilations, but that she chose to leave the ward to search for her husband.

The statement confirmed that both Lisel and the newborn girl were in a stable condition.

The same hospital came under fire last month for refusing to give an abortion to a 9-year-old rape victim. The child requested the abortion and provided a legal complaint to evidence the crime against her, but medical personnel tried to convince her to reconsider, the newspaper El Universal reported.