For their part, two medical experts testified Wednesday at the Sherbrooke courthouse on the third day of the trial of a father charged with aggravated assault on his newborn in the spring of 2022.
An endocrinologist and a neurologist who treated the baby suspected a case of abuse, especially since the father had already lost his first child under similar circumstances.
Dr. Cécile Cieuta-Walti was a neurologist on call when the child was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit at Fleurimont Hospital on March 29, 2022.
The baby was having seizures. “For me it is an emergency […] To avoid an increase in intracranial pressure and an increase in bleeding in the brain, we decided not to intubate him,” she explained.
When the parents informed him that the father had lost a newborn baby several years ago, his first diagnostic impression was: “The history that the father’s daughter died at the age of 22 days under similar circumstances, I suspect that “It was a non-accidental head trauma, but we cannot rule out a genetic metabolic disease.”
Earlier in the day, Dr. Nancy Gagné. The endocrinologist was consulted a few times after the baby’s hospitalization.
The baby, only ten days old, had developed diabetes insipidus.
According to the results of magnetic resonance imaging, this diabetes, which was possibly controlled by medication, was the result of trauma.
Tests were done to check his bone health, which Dr. Gagné described it as optimal.
“The baby did not have a vitamin D deficiency, the fixation of minerals such as calcium and phosphorus in the bone tissue was normal. Therefore, he was no more at risk of fractures than any other child of that age,” she emphasized cautiously.
Remember that the child was diagnosed with fractures, one to the left femur and some to the ribs.
The lawsuit will be heard by other medical experts on Thursday.