Houston Hospital Sends Family Blank Birth Certificate for Stillborn Baby

A Houston family was devastated to receive a blank birth certificate in the mail after the tragic passing of their son.

For the privacy of the family, I will refer to the mother in this story as "J."

J noticed her son wasn't moving a few days before he was due. When babies are full-term with less space in the uterus to wiggle about, it isn’t incredibly uncommon to feel them moving less. But J. decided to go in for an exam just in case.

She was met with the horrific news that her son had passed away due to a knot in his umbilical cord. Knots like these are very rare and only occur in about 1 in every 100 pregnancies. There is no way to prevent such a thing from occurring.

The family spent the next days, weeks and months mourning the loss of their child, who was beautiful and perfectly healthy by all other accounts. One morning, J received mail from Texas Children's Pavilion for Women. Upon opening it, she was shocked to find it was simply a blank birth certificate.

No note. Nothing attached. No paperwork from the hospital to go with it. Just a blank birth certificate.

The official statement from Texas Children's Pavilion for Women:

As soon as we learned of this mistake, we apologized to the family for the error and the additional pain and sadness it has caused. We are reviewing our processes and will do everything possible to ensure this does not happen again. Our top priority is providing the best possible care to our patients and families.

94.5 FMX spoke with J briefly on the matter. While she does not believe the hospital did this was malice or ill will, she agreed that it was by all accounts a gross oversight by the hospital.

"Yeah, an over-the-phone 'sorry' didn't feel like much," she told FMX. "I'm still sad my baby was just another number to them. He didn't even mean enough to fill the damn thing out."

We would like to thank J for allowing her story to be told. We send our love to you and your family and hope to bring awareness to the carelessness displayed by the hospital in an effort to prevent such sorrow for any other family.