As she looked inside her newborn’s mouth, Jennifer Melton was disgusted. She had handed her perfect baby boy over to doctors in the trust that they would look after him. But it seemed that they’d needlessly cut him instead.
Melton comes from Hartsville, Tennessee, where she lives with her partner, Dominique Harper. And in December 2015, the pair were no doubt over the moon to welcome their first child. That month, their son, Nate, was born at University Medical Center in Lebanon, TN.
Following her C-section, Melton fell instantly in love with her little boy. Later, in 2016, she told CBS News, “The baby was perfect, healthy and beautiful.” And, furthermore, she couldn’t have been happier with how the whole delivery went.
However, even though Nate looked perfect from the outside, doctors wanted to be sure that everything was okay. As a result, when the baby was just one day old, medical staff took him for a routine physical. But when he returned, Melton couldn’t believe what they had done.
It appeared that a doctor had mistakenly asked for Nate from the hospital. And, what’s worse, they had performed a surgery that was unneeded. According to Melton, it was her worst nightmare come true.
“I can’t sleep,” the distraught mother revealed to People. “It’s like a horrible dream come to life. I worry and pray that he doesn’t have any issues in the future from what they did with this unneeded procedure.”
Melton explained how, following what she believed was a routine physical, the nurse brought Nate back to her. But rather than the newborn simply having been weighed and had his bloods checked, he had, she revealed, actually undergone a frenulectomy. The nurse then went on to explain that the operation was a “tongue clipping operation.”
Doctors often perform frenulectomies to rectify tongue ties. During the procedure, surgeons remove a flap of skin from beneath the tongue. It’s believed the cutting gives the tongue more motion, reducing the symptoms of a tongue tie.
Tongue ties occur when the tissue that connects the tongue to the mouth is too short. The condition is present in approximately 5 percent of all births. However, depending on the seriousness, it doesn’t always need to be operated on.
However, Nate’s tongue was healthy. “It’s recklessness. There’s no excuse for cutting on a healthy child. There’s no excuse for mixing up babies at a hospital,” Clint Kelly, Melton’s attorney, told CBS News.
According to a report by Health.com, surgical mix-ups are more common than people would believe. A six-year study at one Colorado hospital found that doctors had carried out surgery on incorrect patients 25 times; meanwhile, surgeons had worked on the wrong body parts in 107 patients.
Back in Lebanon, TN, when Nate was handed back to Melton, she opened her mouth to see the damage. “I picked up my precious Nate and looked in his mouth and saw speckles of blood under his tongue,” she revealed to People. “I immediately began crying, wondering what had they done to my innocent child. It’s not like he can speak up and tell them to stop.”
Later, the doctor who performed the procedure telephoned Melton to say sorry. “The pediatrician explained to me that he had accidentally asked for the wrong child, and performed the surgery on Nate by mistake,” Melton told People. “He said he was sorry for what had happened, but that Nate would be fine and that ‘he didn’t even cry that much during the surgery.’”
Following the mix-up, University Medical Center said it couldn’t talk about individual cases owing to patient privacy rules. However, it did confirm that the doctor who performed the operation was not a member of staff at the hospital. Instead, it said, he was “an independent physician who has privileges at our facility.”
“We can confirm that we take seriously any concerns brought to our attention, and those matters are reviewed pursuant to the hospital’s medical staff by-laws,” a hospital representative said in a statement. “If made aware of a concern, we promptly seek to address it and take action as appropriate to prevent any future concerns.”
Nate’s family intended to take legal action against the hospital as soon as the newborn was given his Social Security number. But, most of all, Melton was keen to spread the word about what had happened to her baby. She hoped the same thing would never happen to another family again.
Now, Melton is concerned about any possible permanent damage that the surgery may have on Nate. “We don’t know if the child will have speech problems or eating problems,” Kelly explained to CBS News. “The concern here is this was a healthy baby that was supposed to leave the hospital, but instead was harmed by the hospital.”
“Iknow it’s a job for doctors and it can get repetitive, but we have feelings and we are human beings,” she added in the People interview. “I don’t want anybody to feel like I felt in that moment and how I feel now, stressing over the uncertainty of our future and what’s in store for my sweet baby who is innocent and new to the world.”
Only time will tell about the potential effect that Nate’s frenulectomy has on him in later life. It’s of course understandable that his family would be upset. But thanks to his mom, hopefully the same mistakes can be avoided in the future.
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