A mother in labor at the hospital claims no one checked on her for 5 hours – and her baby was later born with a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain

Need to know

• Jessica Henley tells PEOPLE her C-sections were delayed twice, causing her son to be born with severe injuries.

• Henley alleged poor communication and inadequate care from hospital staff during labor and delivery

• The hospital has denied wrongdoing

A new mother in Georgia is claiming that a late C-section caused serious injuries to her newborn.

Jessica Henley was scheduled for a C-section on October 10, 2025 at Memorial Health University Medical Center. However, on September 25, her water broke.

On her way to the hospital, the 33-year-old tells PEOPLE that her water had “very clearly broken,” but she alleges that when it came time to do a cervical exam, she was told there were no gloves in the exam room, and that a shift change would be coming soon.

Henley tells PEOPLE that even though the hospital staff told her contractions were five minutes apart because her cervix wasn’t checked, she labored for five hours without assessing her labor progress.

During this time, she claims that her C-section was pushed back twice for “more urgent cases”, while she was not examined or re-evaluated.

“We were constantly told how busy they were,” she says.

Her husband, whom Henley refers to as her “support person,” was reportedly not allowed into the pre-op area with her and was brought into the operating room only after she was opened.

All this while Henley reportedly said she regularly went to the nurses’ station when she wasn’t in the exam room to check that her monitors were accurately capturing her contractions and vitals.

Henley says that when he was finally brought into the operating room, he walked over to her side, “screaming and crying in pain with the whole operation” – something Henley says he described as “going deep inside. [his] Brain.”

The new mom accuses PEOPLE that her son had no communication during his birth because doctors didn’t check on his pain level or discomfort.

After the baby was born, Henley claims that the OBGYN never explained what happened, and only when her son was in the NICU was she asked if there were any complications to explain her son’s injuries. He was ultimately born with a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage “caused by birth injuries,” according to medical records reviewed by PEOPLE.

Medical records also show Henley’s son required resuscitation measures such as oxygen, CPAP and suction.

Despite this, Henley’s medical records noted that there were no complications during the procedure and that her “baby was delivered traumatically without injury”. However, the records note that the newborn was “low [muscle] Tone and Philo,” and doctors later diagnosed him with a massive hemorrhage, or “bleeding on the brain,” as well as a fractured skull.

Memorial Health University Medical Center told PEOPLE in a statement, “Our priority is to provide high-quality care in a safe, supportive environment. When patients don’t feel that way, we meet with them to hear their concerns. We did that in this case. We also work with regulatory agencies on an ongoing basis to identify ways we can maintain and strengthen both processes.”

“The ideas in the story you referenced are not supported by medical facts,” the statement continued. “Unfortunately, complications can occur in all procedures, even when proper care is provided. When they do, they don’t always appear immediately. Medical records are chronological accounts of care as it happens and are updated as new information becomes available.”

“As a regional center for high-risk obstetrics and a level IV NICU, our teams routinely care for some of the smallest and sickest newborns. We are committed to providing safe, compassionate care to every patient we serve,” the statement said.

Henley tells PEOPLE and documents reviewed by PEOPLE show her son stayed in the NICU for eight more days, where he received blood transfusions, external oxygen, and a feeding tube.

While his skull fracture has resolved and his hematomas have resolved, he is still under the care of a neurologist and requires additional monitoring based on his birth-related injuries, which put him at increased risk of developmental problems, Henley claims.

Hospital records reviewed by PEOPLE also show Henley’s “postpartum course was complicated by symptomatic anemia,” which resulted in her receiving a blood transfusion.

She said she took time to process her experience and adjust to being a new parent before filing her complaint with the hospital in late October.

The hospital, however, claims that the information shared by the parents is “not supported by medical facts”.

After receiving a letter from the hospital on Nov. 12 saying she had complained, Henley didn’t hear from the health center for nearly two months.

When she was contacted again, Henley says she was told that there had been an in-house morbidity and mortality conference about C-sections, that they could not share those findings, and that there was no other research they could share, she says.

Hainley then decided to make his concerns more public by posting on social media outlining his experience. A few days later, he was called to meet with the hospital leadership.

She recalls getting emotional during the meeting and feeling that one attendee was trying to shut it down.

After reportedly promising that her family would receive an outline of how the hospital was working to improve safety and quality, she told PEOPLE that she received only a “short note that contained only meaningless platitudes.”

She contacted again on February 10, 2026 to express her dissatisfaction with the response and did not hear from the hospital after that.

Henley also reached out to the Joint Commission on Quality and Patient Safety office, which accredits the hospital, to share her grievances.

The Joint Commission responded to Henley’s message, claiming that “needs for improvement were identified during the onsite review” and that Memorial Health should “show evidence of compliance” with them and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

When reached by PEOPLE, the Joint Commission’s Office of Quality and Patient Safety said, “The Joint Commission requires that health care organizations and the programs it certifies—including whether or not a complaint or voluntarily reported incident has been received—be confidential. All publicly available information about certifications and certifications is available on our website and the commission has released them.”

Hainley tells PEOPLE that she wants families going through similar situations to know they’re not alone, and she stresses the importance of reporting quality and patient safety concerns to the Joint Commission.

“Even though the loss and trauma we experienced is irreparable, we want to protect others from the same pain,” she tells PEOPLE.

Henley says Memorial Health “should be done better and held to a higher standard,” and has started a Change.org petition in hopes of that.

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“Birth is supposed to be a beautiful thing, but for me and many other mothers in Georgia, our birth stories come with PTSD and a mix of emotions that the human vernacular can’t capture,” she says.

Read the original article on People