New Year’s Baby a TV Special : Medicine: Doctor says he manipulated birth for televised religious service in Anaheim. He claims that it was safe, but questions have been raised.

State medical officials are investigating an Anaheim general practitioner who timed the delivery of a baby on New Year’s Eve so he could tuck the infant into a Christmas stocking, whisk her to Melodyland Christian Center, and display her before a nationally televised religious service as one of the first babies of 1990.

The conduct of Dr. Charles Wesley Turner Jr. in orchestrating a delivery for the telecast was “very unusual,” said one investigator at the Board of Medical Quality Assurance, the state agency that regulates physicians.

Although Turner said that neither the mother, Brigitte Palmer, nor her 6-pound, 12-ounce daughter was harmed by Turner’s actions, the medical board on Wednesday opened a formal investigation into the incident, sources confirmed.

In addition to the latest inquiry, the 64-year-old Turner was already being investigated by the Board of Medical Quality Assurance for negligence in obstetrical care, sources close to the inquiry said. Investigators declined to give details, and Turner said he was unaware of the earlier investigation.

The doctor, who boasts of delivering more than 18,000 babies in his 40-year career, said Wednesday that he is very good at delivering babies and any criticism is unfair.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having the first baby of the New Year. And the baby was delivered safely,” Turner said. “And I see nothing wrong with taking the baby and showing it to the 4,000” people gathered at Melodyland’s service.

The baby was delivered at Turner’s Covenant Birthing Center at 15 seconds after midnight, on Monday, Jan. 1. Turner said he administered a spinal anesthesia, called a saddle block, to the mother at 11:45 p.m. Sunday and then used forceps to pull the baby out. The newborn was then quickly cleaned up, wrapped in a blanket, and stuffed in a stocking.

The doctor then ran with the infant about 150 feet outside the birthing center to Melodyland Christian Center. The crowd “yelled and screamed and applauded” the appearance of the newborn, Turner said. He added that he returned the baby to the mother about 10 minutes later.

Melodyland’s pastor, the Rev. Ralph Wilkerson, had asked Turner about three months ago if the doctor could provide a newborn for the New Year’s Eve service, Turner said. Also present at the service was a Christian weightlifting team, and during the baby’s three-minute appearance on the podium, one weightlifter patted the baby’s head.

Turner said that about five expectant mothers were in the birthing center the night of Dec. 31. He decided that the 25-year-old Palmer would deliver the year’s first baby because he expected the baby to be small and “easier to come out.”

Turner now calculates that he delivered the baby about three weeks early, but “there was no evidence of prematurity,” he said.

In addition to the state board inquiries, Turner was named in a wrongful death lawsuit in 1988 after a child he delivered at Santa Ana Hospital Medical Center died immediately after birth. The suit by parents of infant Ana Asia, which is still pending in Orange County Superior Court, alleges that Turner caused the baby’s death in 1987 by failing to perform a “timely” Cesarean section.

Turner on Wednesday denied any wrongdoing in the case.

He remains on the hospital’s staff but lost his privileges to practice obstetrics at the hospital sometime around 1988 because his cases had “some complications,” a top hospital official said.

Also, in 1984, the medical board accused Turner of illegally prescribing dangerous drugs, and placed his license on five years probation. That probation was lifted last year. Turner pleaded no contest in Orange County Municipal Court to a misdemeanor charge related to the same case and was placed on three years criminal probation and fined $15,000.

Turner graduated from University of Arkansas Medical School in 1950 and was licensed to practice medicine in California in 1953.

As news spread Wednesday of Turner’s race to deliver the first baby of the year, other doctors questioned both the propriety and safety of his actions.

Dr. Roger Schlesinger, president of the Orange County Obstetrics and Gynecological Society, said he thought Turner was taking a risk when he took a newborn baby out of his birthing center.

“Babies are pretty hardy,” Schlesinger continued. “Most do well. But some don’t. So I guess he was playing the odds a bit.”

A relative of the newborn baby, however, praised Turner for his actions. “I don’t see anything wrong with that (hastening the delivery in order to show the baby on television),” said Al Olson of Orange, stepfather of the newborn baby’s father.