ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : A Doctor’s Untimely Ego Trip

The Anaheim physician who manipulated the time of a baby’s birth so that it took place seconds after midnight on New Year’s morning--just in time to be featured as “the first baby of the decade” on a TV religious service--proudly boasts about his feat:

“I was highly jubilant. The congregation yelled and screamed and applauded,” said Dr. Charles Wesley Turner Jr. “I knew that God had a hand in it.”

Perhaps. But a pair of forceps made a difference, too.

The 4,000-member congregation at Melodyland Christian Center didn’t know that Turner used forceps. He also administered a spinal anesthesia to the mother because “in this way I could control the delivery of the baby.” While not necessarily dangerous procedures, neither might have been needed had Turner not been determined to deliver Orange County’s first baby of 1990.

Turner took the baby girl, cleaned her up, clamped the umbilical cord and wrapped her in a blanket. He then slipped her into a Christmas stocking and ran to nearby Melodyland. Nurses, meanwhile, attended the mother--who was still awaiting stitches. She said that she felt “a little funny” when the doctor ran off with her baby, but otherwise didn’t object.

Well, we do. And so do investigators for the state Board of Medical Quality Assurance, who said Wednesday that they have opened an inquiry into the incident and have also been investigating Turner for alleged negligence in obstetrical care unrelated to the New Year’s birth.

As several physicians pointed out, the baby couldn’t have been properly monitored immediately following the birth and was away from needed medical equipment in case of emergency.

Whatever Turner was thinking, it was colored by his determination to be first. He was on an ego trip, and he should be ashamed.