A top Russian prosecutor has ordered a fresh investigation after a woman gave birth to a baby who then fell headfirst on the floor, tearing apart the placenta as the umbilical cord was pulled by the falling newborn.

The incident resulted in the woman needing emergency treatment and the baby Mariel ending up in intensive care and has since been left with difficulty in seeing.

Even more shockingly, the incident was the third time something similar had happened involving the same doctor.

But now local prosecutors at the hospital in Khabarovsk Krai in Russia’s far east have ruled that it was an accident and no one was to blame, even questioning whether the baby had even fallen on the floor in the first place.

But after the story was reported widely in local media, the chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin, has ordered a fresh enquiry into all of the incidents, including the two earlier cases where there was reportedly a criminal investigation ordered.

The 23-year-old mother Emilia Pogrebnyak said that Mariel was her second child and she had been taken to the Novosibirsk maternity hospital for the delivery when the accident happened on the night of 16th July, 2022.

She said that it was something that all happened very quickly, yet she was in the birthing room and there was only the doctor but also several nurses who did nothing when the baby emerged and then fell into the floor.

Emilia’s mother Ekaterina said: “I know that a young woman, a medical worker, was standing next to her but did nothing.

“My daughter was screaming that the baby was coming and then she heard the sound of the baby falling and hitting the floor followed by the umbilical cord being ripped out.”

She said that another woman had rushed in and grabbed the baby and run off with it and then they had started treating her daughter because the umbilical cord had ripped leaving damage to the placenta and causing internal bleeding.

She was told conflicting stories after that including an eventual report that claimed it had been a homebirth and denied that the child had ever fallen on the floor.

The family had hoped a criminal case would bring closure, but instead allege that it has turned into a whitewash with prosecutors finding no fault on behalf of medics are not even indicating how any of these injuries including a fractured skull could have happened.

In the report, it said that the Injuries were “caused as a result of excessive deformation of the baby’s head during rapid passage through the birth canal during rapid labour.”

Ekaterina said that even if that was true, it did not explain injuries caused by the umbilical cord being ripped free.

She added that all of the medics present at the time gave conflicting stories, and the statements from the two other women both of whom resulted in criminal investigations against the hospital were not taken into account.

The family added that they were not interested in compensation for the injuries, but wanted to see somebody held responsible, especially given the fact that the two earlier incidents involving the same doctor involved babies who later died, although the specific details of the medical malpractice allegations were not revealed.

In the meantime, Mariel is now a year old, and she has a problem with her eyesight.