[Premature detachment of the placenta due to kicks to the lower abdomen]

Sarah Schalinski1, Hansjörg Schäfer, Jakob Matschke

  • 1Aus dem Institut für Rechtsmedizin des Universitätsklinikums Hamburg-Eppendorf

Archiv Fur Kriminologie
|October 28, 2006
PubMed

An 18-year-old woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy was admitted to hospital for gynaecological emergency treatment with pain after kicks to the lower abdomen. Premature detachment of the placenta was diagnosed and an immediate Caesarian section was performed. Although the newborn was resuscitated at once by the medical team, it died two days later in the paediatric hospital from multiorgan failure. The autopsy results together with the pathological findings of the palcenta proved the causal context between the kicks, the premature detachment of the placenta and the hypoxia requiring postnatal resuscitation, so that the perpetrator was found guilty.

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