Is This Any Way to Treat a Newborn? A Dissenting Vote

Dr. Charles Wesley Turner Jr. says God worked through him to deliver the first baby of the decade at a birthing center in Anaheim.

Turner says he timed it perfectly, injecting the mother with drugs and telling her to push a minute before midnight. When the baby didn’t pop right out, Turner pulled her out with forceps at 15 seconds after 12 a.m.

Then he wrapped her in a blanket, stuck her in a Christmas stocking and ran next door, where a nationally televised New Year’s Eve service was under way at the Melodyland Christian Center.

Turner says the arrival of Myra Kristine Palmer, 6 pounds, 12 ounces, was a big hit, that when he stepped onto the stage, the congregation of 4,000 people screamed and applauded. A power weightlifter even patted the newborn on the head.

“I knew that God had a hand in it,” Turner said. “It’s like a horse race where the horse who gets his nose over the line first wins. I was thrilled.”

And I was sickened.

I couldn’t imagine it. A doctor taking a newborn baby into the night chill, dashing down the aisle of a packed auditorium and then for the real jolt of her new life, holding her up to the glare of klieg lights, the applause, the hoots and hollers.

The New Year had arrived and Dr. Charles Wesley Turner apparently found the perfect prop. So much for the cozy intimacy of his Covenant Birthing Center.

I realize that some people, including the baby’s parents, may think I am a spoilsport, or worse. What did it hurt? they may ask.

Mother and daughter are reportedly doing fine. Father was so proud that when he read a story announcing that a baby born in Fountain Valley at 20 seconds after midnight was the first of the year, he called The Times to say it wasn’t so.

But after the story of Myra’s first television appearance ran in the newspaper, state medical officials said they would add Turner’s handling of the birth to their ongoing investigation of the doctor for possible negligence in his obstetrical practice.

Turner lost his privilege to practice obstetrics at a Santa Ana hospital after being named in a still-pending wrongful death suit of a infant he delivered there in 1987. In 1984, the state Board of Medical Quality Assurance placed him on probation for five years after he was accused of illegally prescribing dangerous drugs.

So I called Myra’s parents, Brigitte and Gary Palmer of Orange, to see how they felt now. They didn’t know about any investigations, they said, but added that they were unconcerned.

They seemed more upset that their magic moment had been tarnished by implications in this newspaper that maybe something wasn’t quite right.

“All that I can say is that I trust him,” Brigitte said of her doctor. “I felt perfectly safe. I don’t know why they are picking on him. . . . I have a private HMO that would have charged me $36 to have a baby. Instead, I paid $2,000 to have it with Dr. Turner.”

So what’s my problem? It looks like we have a healthy baby, proud and satisfied parents and a congregation of happy worshipers. Brigitte says she would go back to Turner again. He delivered her first child 17 months ago, and he used forceps then.

As for the anesthetic, the so-called saddle block, the mother says the doctor explained that it would be better for the baby. It took her an hour and a half to deliver her first child, she says, and all that pushing can be harmful to delicate young lives.

My problem with this whole scenario is that I think Turner took a risk and took advantage. Turner thinks God was on his side. I think he has delusions of divinity.

Gary Palmer says that his wife was due to deliver on Feb. 4. So that makes Myra’s arrival early, technically on the cusp of prematurity.

Brigitte says that when she started having labor pains two days before her daughter’s birth, she called Turner for an emergency appointment. She says he gave her an injection of medication to slow labor, kept her overnight and then sent her home, cautioning her to take it easy.

When she returned Sunday, New Year’s Eve, Brigitte said Turner told her, “Well, we’re going to have the first New Year’s baby.”

“After he mentioned it, it sounded fun, an exciting idea,” the mother says. “I think the Lord was with us, and that’s why it happened.”

Maybe Brigitte Palmer is right. Maybe the Lord was watching out for her baby. Maybe that’s why she is showing no ill effects from her spectacular birth.

I don’t mean to throw cold water on a joyous event, the birth of a loved and healthy baby. I wish Myra Kristine, and her family, the very best.

But I can only hope that Dr. Turner, in a quest to win some other made-for-TV horse race, doesn’t involve any more young lives.