Baby Rushed Into World for TV : Medicine: A physician used an anesthetic and forceps to remove child in time for display at a Melodyland religious broadcast nationwide minutes into the new year.

A doctor at a birthing center on the grounds of Melodyland Christian Center said Tuesday that he timed the delivery of a baby on New Year’s Eve so he could take the infant next door and display her for a midnight religious service being broadcast to a national television audience.

Dr. Charles Wesley Turner Jr., a 64-year-old physician who boasts of delivering more than 18,000 babies during his 41-year career, said Tuesday that he administered a “saddle block,” or epidural anesthetic at the base of the mother’s spine, and used forceps to remove the baby, Myra Kristine Palmer.

Turner then swaddled the 6-pound, 12-ounce infant in a blanket, tucked her in a Christmas stocking and ran about 150 feet outside to another building, where the church service was being conducted.

“We had her (the mother) push at 11:59,” Turner said. “I put the forceps on and pulled (the infant) out. We had her at 15 seconds after midnight. . . . I used the forceps because I wanted to have the first baby in the New Year. And this was a planned delivery,” he said.

“I was highly jubilant,” Turner continued. “The congregation yelled and screamed and applauded. And everybody wanted to see the baby.”

Both parents were present during the delivery and gave their consent, Turner said.

“I felt a little funny because he took her and ran off with her,” said Brigitte Elke Palmer, the newborn’s 25-year-old mother, a cashier for the county of Orange. “But he (Turner) wanted to have her on TV. It was a special feeling for everyone to see the baby.”

When told of the New Year’s Eve delivery, Dr. Thomas J. Garite, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at UCI Medical Center in Orange, said, “It makes me raise an eyebrow or two.”

Garite said a forceps delivery is as safe as a spontaneous birth provided it is performed when the baby’s head is far enough down in the birth canal.

“Obviously, the ethical question that comes into play at that point is whether or not the mother was fully informed that (the forceps delivery) was being done for that reason,” Garite said.

However, Garite questioned the use of the “saddle block” anesthetic.

“It frightens me that somebody’s giving saddle blocks in a birthing center,” Garite said. While UCI is considering opening a birthing center, the university would “never consider” using such an anesthetic there because of the possibility of complications, he said.

“The only concern I would have is whether or not the warmth of the baby is protected adequately,” Garite said, noting that newborns do not control their body temperatures very well. “You have to be real careful in taking the baby away at that point.”

Turner said that neither the baby nor the mother was in any danger, and that both are in excellent condition. He said he was careful to warmly wrap the infant before taking her from the delivery room.

Turner said a delivery had been planned more than three months ago, when Melodyland Pastor Ralph Wilkerson asked if he could provide a newborn baby for the church’s New Year’s Eve service that would kick off its 30th anniversary celebration.

It promised to be a spectacular event: John Jacobs and the Power Team, a renowned team of Christian weightlifters who break metal cuffs from their hands, bend iron bars and “do things you see only on ‘SportsWorld,’ ” was also a main attraction, Wilkerson said Tuesday.

“I told him (Turner) if we have a baby at the midnight hour, it’ll be extraordinary for our service,” the pastor added.

Turner said he knew that Brigitte Palmer would “provide” that first baby. Palmer, formerly of Ulm, Germany, said she had gone to Turner’s Covenant Birthing Center for a checkup on Friday and was told by the doctor that she was already in labor.

Turner said he released Palmer on Saturday after she made no progress and asked her to return to the birthing center Sunday.

Said Turner: “About 7:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, I had about five women in the center, and I was trying to figure out which would be the easiest one to deliver. I decided that it would be (Brigitte) because it was her second baby. Her first weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces, and this one would be smaller and relatively easier to come out.”

Turner said he calculated that if he didn’t rupture the membrane, Palmer would be “about seven to eight centimeters dilated at 11 o’clock.”

At around 11:44 p.m., Turner said, his patient was more than nine centimeters dilated. One minute later, he administered the saddle block.

“In this way, I could control the delivery of the baby. . . . She was completely dilated at 11:55 p.m. and the head (of the baby) was ready to come out.”

Immediately after the delivery, Turner said, he “cleared up the baby’s face, clamped the (umbilical) cord, wrapped the baby in a receiving blanket, slipped her down into a large Christmas stocking and ran from the delivery room over to the podium at Melodyland.”

Wilkerson had already announced to the 4,000-member congregation and a Trinity Broadcasting Network television audience that they would have a newborn baby for the new year.

Turner said: “An usher had to clear the aisle for me. . . . They announced that it was the first baby of the decade. John Jacobs (of The Power Team weightlifters) patted the baby’s head.”

Palmer said that nurses removed the infant’s placenta, and about 10 minutes later Turner returned “to stitch me up. . . . He gave my baby back to me.”

Five seconds after the delivery, Khanh Quach of Long Beach reportedly gave birth to a 9-pound, 7-ounce daughter at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center who was previously thought to be Orange County’s first baby of the new decade.

“After I read about that baby in Fountain Valley born at 20 seconds after midnight,” Turner said, “I knew that God had a hand in it. It’s like a horse race where the horse who gets his nose over the line first wins. I was thrilled.”

Times staff writer Sonni Efron contributed to this report.