Before he was born, Miguel had to fight to live. When Leonor Felix , his mother, gave birth, he had been suffering for more than a week inside. He was seven months pregnant and the bag broke nine days before his birth. Nine days with his nine nights without amniotic fluid and sepsis caused cerebral palsy in the most severe form. During all that time, she was admitted to the private clinic of Palma to which she went on October 23, 2012. She gave birth on November 5, after the bridge of All Saints: «My son was born only because my life began To be in danger, because the fever went up. If not, they wouldn't have taken it from me, I would have died inside of me.

She and her husband, Gregorio Codolá , have denounced the negligence that left Miguel with a 92% disability. In 2017 they filed a criminal complaint against two gynecologists, a midwife and the clinic. The case was admitted for processing, but was filed "without even taking a statement from one of the investigators or contrasting the expert reports." Now, the Provincial Court has just ordered to reopen the investigation.

"We tried to show that they wanted my son to die inside me, because a fetus has less rights than a born baby , " he says harshly, but without drama or rancor in his words. "I don't think they did it badly, I guess when the gynecologist realized the damage she had suffered, she wanted to save us a problem, because she knew her life would be very hard." Over time, he says he has discovered that it is a "relatively frequent practice": "There are doctors who communicate it to the family, inform them of the serious damage their child has and they decide what they want to do. In my case, my gynecologist said nothing to us, she made the decision alone.

Due to that negligence that they denounce, their son has zero mobility, is quadriplegic, does not hold his head, has serious vision problems, severe cognitive retardation, does not speak ... This is the chronology of his birth in 2012 and his first months of lifetime:

  • October 23: Leonor Felix enters the private clinic "with discomfort and contractions." It is 29 weeks pregnant and as the delivery would be viable, corticosteroids are injected to mature the baby's lungs. They monitor and administer treatment to stop contractions. The amniotic bag is whole.
  • October 28: The mother breaks waters. She is still hospitalized.
  • October 29: He has been fasting early in the morning to perform a caesarean section that at noon, without explanation, is canceled. The mother asks for the transfer to the public hospital of Son Espases, but she is persuaded to continue in the private clinic where she is. From neonatology they say: "The more hours he is inside you, the better." Second day with the broken bag.
  • October 30: Leonor remains hospitalized, with the bag broken.
  • October 31: Still admitted, fasting and with daily analytics. They monitor her for two hours and, according to the complaint, "there you could see fetal suffering."
  • November 1: National holiday, bridge of All Saints. Day when, according to the complainants, the abandonment of daily care begins. That is, when they want Miguel to die inside his mother. She is still hospitalized, fifth day with the broken bag. They take away the medication and stop doing the daily tests that he had scheduled, such as the analytical ones, they don't even take his temperature. He is denied multiorgan and multisystem fetal distress due to neonatal sepsis that Miguel is suffering. Leonor, who had already given birth to five children before, knew that something was wrong, he did not notice Miguel moving.
  • November 2: No one from the health staff visits the mother. Sixth day since the rupture of the amniotic sac.
  • November 3: Stay logged in and without tests for your daily check. Her gynecologist calls her on the phone in the afternoon. Seventh day with the broken bag.
  • November 4: No one from the health staff visits her all day, until night, when Leonor's pains are so strong that they accept to monitor her. Fetal suffering returns and pain relievers are supplied. Eighth day with the broken bag.
  • November 5: Monday after the bridge. Finally, after the holidays, her gynecologist visits her and, seeing her concern, tries to reassure her by saying that "everything is going well." The mother already has a fever and feels very bad. They put oxytocin to cause contractions and lower her to the delivery room, where she waits two hours for her gynecologist to arrive. In that wait, "the baby has gone through," a posture that makes vaginal delivery impossible. You have an emergency caesarean section. Your gynecologist and the one on duty and a midwife attend the delivery. Miguel is born without crying, with serious neurological sequelae due to cerebral hypoxia.
  • Four months after birth: She takes her oldest daughter to get a vaccine, at a clinic other than the one she gave birth to Miguel, who goes with her that day. During the visit, the baby has a crisis of screaming, crying and spasms. His daughter's pediatrician then tells him that what no one had told him until that moment: «Leonor, don't be fooled anymore, your son doesn't cry like that because he is premature, he has a cerebral palsy».

«I fell into a depression. I kept crying, I even told my psychiatrist that I had horrible thoughts, that the easiest thing would be for my son and I to disappear, ”Leonor remembers how his two oldest children, two twins who are 23 today, held her and pushed to get out of that well. To help her mother they used the words she always told them: «Tears are necessary, but things don't change. You have to get up and start changing what you don't like ». This is the only moment in the entire interview in which tears are lost.

Leonor Félix at the Nemo Foundation JORDI AVELLÀ

«I don't want money, I want truth and responsibility. That no child be born again as Miguel was born, ”says Leonor. The criminal complaint provides medical reports that support the accusation of a crime of injuries due to imprudence and negligence: «They have tried to put monitors of my daughter, who was born two years earlier. There are manipulated reports, there is not even the birth sheet ».

Last September, the Provincial Court issued an order to reopen his case, "filed unnecessarily hastily", to be able to practice the proceedings that had been pending. The family also complains that it would be to file the case with the report of a forensic psychiatrist, "a specialty that has nothing to do with the nature of the facts reported."

Seven years after the birth of their son, Leonor and Gregorio continue to fight from the Nemo Foundation, an entity they created three years ago, where the most avant-garde techniques are applied without profit. Today, despite his disability, Miguel is a happy child. His friends say he is always happy.

Nemo Foundation

When Leonor Félix and Gregorio Codolá sought the best therapies for their son, they found that those in Mallorca did not work in Miguel. Until they found the Anat Baniel Method, in the United States. So far she went with her baby of a year and a half and the physiotherapist who treated him at home. They were in the US UU. four months and for the first time they saw a change in the child, something good, his son responded. "When we returned other mothers with children like Miguel asked me how it had gone, but I would have been irresponsible if I had told them that well, knowing that it is such an expensive therapy there. They would have done anything, I could not tell them at that time the true, "Leonor remembers. The solution was her and her son's physiotherapist will study that method. For four years, every month and a half, the two moved with Miguel to San Francisco: "All I asked was that when we finished and returned to Mallorca, I would not charge more for therapy sessions." Today, that fiosioterapeuta, Verónica Espinar, not only kept his word, but is the manager of the Nemo Foundation, a neurorehabilitation center created three years ago by Leonor and her husband, a non-profit organization that offers the most avant-garde treatments available of all and that has already helped more than three hundred families.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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