Former midwife Yolande Maritz Fouchee in the dock in the Pretoria High Court. She is facing 14 charges after several babies were born with cerebral palsy and one had died.
Image: Zelda Venter
The parents of a baby boy who died nine days after he was born under the watch of Pretoria East midwife, Yolande Maritz Fouchee, this week testified in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, that apart from a few “moaning” sounds made by the baby, he never cried at all until his death.
Alysia von Kloeg was the third mother to take the stand in the culpable homicide and assault trial of now deregistered midwife Yolande Maritz Fouchee. Her son was born on April 3, 2019, at Fouchee’s You&Me birthing centre in Pretoria East. He later died at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital.
The State is claiming that Fouchee’s negligent actions caused the death of the Von Kloeg baby and led to three other babies being born with cerebral palsy. It is alleged that Fouchee also assaulted the baby's mothers by dosing water with the medication Cytotec and giving them the water to drink prior to the birth. Cytotec is used to induce uterine contractions to hasten the labour process.
Von Kloeg, who was under Fouchee’s professional care from her pregnancy up to the baby’s birth, testified that she was going into labour on the day of the birth. When she got to Fouchee’s clinic, the latter gave her a substance to drink, which Fouchee described as a rescue remedy.
According to Von Kloeg, her contractions increased, and she shortly afterwards gave birth to her son Noah, who was blue and struggled to breathe. She said Fouchee explained to her that some babies struggle to “wake up as they do not realise that they have been born yet".
The child, however, continued to struggle with breathing, and the mother and child were eventually taken to hospital. The baby died in his mother’s arms nine days later, when doctors told her there was nothing they could do for little Noah.
The machines that had kept him alive were eventually switched off. Noah was Von Kloeg’s first born.
Fouchee, denied any responsibility for the state in which the babies were born under her care, relating to the charges she is facing. In the case of baby Noah, her version is that the mother had an abnormal placenta.
According to Fouchee’s defence, she advised Von Kloeg on several occasions to go to a doctor prior to the birth. Von Kloeg denied this and said Fouchee, throughout her pregnancy, told her the unborn baby was healthy.
The court heard that Fouchee handled between 16 to 24 deliveries a month at her You&Me delivery centre in Pretoria East, for which she charged from R16,000 upwards per delivery.
One of the charges Fouchee is facing is that she called her daughter in to assist her with the deliveries. Her daughter, the prosecution said, does not hold any medical qualifications.
The daughter, Estune Maritz, earlier testified that since she was about 10, she witnessed the births at her mother’s clinic. Her role in assisting her mother slowly developed, and when she was 15, her mother took her out of school to home-school her.
Since then, she said, she assisted her mother on a more permanent basis with the births. Maritz said she has never received any nursing training, yet she had to perform nursing functions.
According to her, in some cases, she was told by her mother to give the mothers Cytotec, which was diluted in a glass of water. When the mothers asked what they were drinking, she told them it was a rescue remedy, Maritz said.
Proceeding