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Jessica Ross was distraught when she emerged from an operating room and learned that her son had died in childbirth. Ross had struggled for hours the previous evening to deliver her baby, whose shoulders had become stuck mid-delivery in a complication known as shoulder dystocia, according to a lawsuit.

Tracey St. Julian, Ross’s obstetrician, pulled forcefully on her son’s head in an effort to deliver him, according to Ross’s attorneys. She was unsuccessful, and instead tried to deliver him through a Caesarean section, the lawsuit states.

When Ross came to, St. Julian told her that her son had suffered trauma to his neck and did not survive the delivery, according to Ross’s attorneys. Ross asked if the hospital could perform an autopsy and was allegedly discouraged by hospital staff, who suggested that she have her son cremated. Ross sent her son’s body to a funeral home instead, her attorneys said.

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Then, three days after the operation, Ross’s attorneys said she received a startling call from the funeral home: Her son had arrived decapitated.

The injury happened during the C-section, St. Julian allegedly told her later that day.

Ross and her partner, Treveon Isaiah Taylor Sr., sued St. Julian; St. Julian’s practice, Premier Women’s OB/GYN; and the Riverdale, Ga., hospital, Southern Regional Medical Center on Wednesday, alleging gross negligence and seeking damages for what their attorneys called an egregious example of the crisis in maternal care facing Black mothers in the United States.

“The future was bright and we looked forward to sharing so many special moments with our son,” Ross and Taylor Sr. said in a statement to The Washington Post. “ … All of those dreams were stolen from us when his life was tragically taken through the reckless actions of our doctor and the hospital staff.”

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A representative at Premier Women’s OB/GYN reached by phone declined to comment. An attorney for Premier Women’s OB/GYN and St. Julian also declined to comment.

A spokesperson for Southern Regional Medical Center said in a statement that Ross’s child died in utero before his decapitation and delivery. The spokesperson added that St. Julian is not an employee of the hospital and denied the allegations against the hospital’s staff.

“Our commitment is to provide compassionate, quality care to every single patient, and this loss is heartbreaking,” the spokesperson said.

Ross, 20, and Taylor Sr., 21, met in high school and had already named their baby Treveon Isaiah Taylor Jr., according to Ross’s attorneys.

“They were both, and the families, tremendously excited about the prospect of having the son,” Roderick Edmond, an attorney for Ross, told The Washington Post.

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Ross was rushed to Southern Regional Medical Center after her water broke on the morning of July 9, the lawsuit states. That evening, doctors discovered the complication impeding her delivery: a rare condition in which, after a baby’s head emerges, the shoulders become trapped in the mother’s pelvis.

Obstetricians are expected to call for assistance and attempt several maneuvers to resolve a case of shoulder dystocia, Edmond said.

St. Julian did not do so, the lawsuit alleges. She instead “applied traction” to the baby’s head, it states.

“Dr. St. Julian came in and she, in the process of trying to deliver this baby, pulled on the baby’s head and neck so hard, and manipulated them so hard that bones in the baby’s skull, face and neck were broken,” Edmond said at a Wednesday news conference.

St. Julian attempted to deliver Ross’s baby for a “significant” amount of time and only prescribed a C-section around midnight, according to the lawsuit. Monitors showed the baby’s heart rate slowing hours earlier, but no resuscitative measures were documented in response, the complaint states.

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After the C-section, St. Julian did not tell Ross that her baby had been decapitated, according to the lawsuit. Cory Lynch, another attorney for Ross, said Wednesday that Southern Regional Medical Center did not allow Ross or Taylor Sr. to hold their son and that the couple only saw Taylor Jr. through a window, wrapped tightly so his injuries weren’t visible.

Southern Regional Medical Center staff allegedly told Ross that she would have to pay out-of-pocket for an autopsy and suggested that she cremate the body. It was only after Ross learned about her son’s condition from the funeral home that St. Julian also confirmed the baby was decapitated, Ross’s attorneys said. St. Julian told the couple that she was trying to spare them the shock of those details at the time, according to Edmond.

“The cold and calculated way in which the hospital attempted to hide [the baby’s] manner of death has been gut-wrenching,” Ross and Taylor Sr. said.

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Edmond added that while he was not alleging the negligence in Ross’s childbirth was intentional, the case exemplified the disparities in maternal health for Black women.

“The reality is that, for whatever reason, people who look like Ms. Ross, who are about her age and her demographic, their babies wind up dying, and so do the women,” Edmond said. “There’s a statistical problem going on in this nation. Now this is a classic example of another statistic.”

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