Corner to Corner by Columnist Diane D. Denish — Recently, I listened to the historical fiction novel The Frozen River, based on the life of Martha Ballard. Her life is chronicled in The Midwife’s Diary, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1991. From 1785 to 1812, Ballard recorded the weather and daily life in Hallowell, Maine. During those 27 years, she attended 816 births.
Corner to Corner
Diane Denish is a former lieutenant governor of New Mexico. She is a native of Hobbs and now lives in Albuquerque.
The story is inspiring, intriguing and, most of all, authentically human.
What struck me was Ballard’s calm and gentle nature as she attended women giving birth. She asked permission before touching or examining a mother and spoke firmly but softly. She was respectful and kind.
Then fast-forward more than two centuries to 2023 and the case of Alexee Trevizo.
I read a news report about a New Mexico Supreme Court decision throwing out evidence in Trevizo’s case. Then I read the entire unanimous court opinion.
Here’s what happened.
Trevizo, a 19-year-old high school senior, went to the emergency room in Artesia at midnight in January 2023. She complained of cramps, back pain and vaginal bleeding. When a female doctor asked if she was pregnant, Trevizo said no. She said the pain had begun after cheerleading practice earlier that day.
The emergency room team gave her anti-inflammatory and pain medications, including an IV containing morphine. Twenty-three minutes after the drugs began, a serum pregnancy test came back positive.
The IV drugs continued for another 48 minutes.
And here is what I find astonishing: No one told Trevizo she had tested positive for pregnancy.
According to the court opinion, no one on the medical staff connected the cramps, back pain, bleeding and positive pregnancy test with the possibility that she was about to deliver a baby.
Trevizo asked to go to the bathroom, believing she needed a bowel movement. Anyone who has given birth—or anyone medically trained to recognize labor—knows that urge can actually be the urge to push.
She remained in the bathroom for 19 minutes. During that time, she delivered a baby who she later said was “not moving, no breathing, nothing.” She placed the newborn in a trash can.
When staff discovered the baby, police were called. A male charge nurse (not the ER nurse) immediately told officers, “She wouldn’t tell us she was pregnant” and “killed the kid.”
Meanwhile, Trevizo was experiencing profuse bleeding, clots and other symptoms of a potentially life-threatening postpartum hemorrhage. Yet, according to the court opinion, the doctor did not examine her until law enforcement arrived.
Then the situation became even more disturbing.
The doctor invited two male, armed police officers into Trevizo’s room. One officer blocked the door. According to the opinion, the doctor, in a hostile manner, confronted Trevizo about the dead baby. Trevizo said, “I’m sorry. It just came out of me. I didn’t know what to do.”
Her words were recorded on police body cameras.
The officers and the male charge nurse were present while Trevizo was vaginally examined. If you are a woman reading this, I hope you are cringing.
Eventually, Trevizo was transferred and later charged with first-degree murder.
It is difficult to look at this case and see anything other than a systematic failure – of medical providers and law enforcement.
Neither Trevizo nor her mother were informed of her medical rights or her right to doctor-patient confidentiality. She could not knowingly waive rights she apparently did not know she had. Whose job was this?
Law enforcement failed to read her Miranda warnings while the cameras kept recording. Poor training or neglect?
And medical personnel failed her at multiple points. She was not told about the positive pregnancy test or, later, the seriousness of her own medical condition. Powerful IV drugs continued after the pregnancy test came back positive. The baby’s autopsy indicated free morphine in his heart blood. Research questions the use of morphine in the last hours of labor.
As a woman and a mother, I am astonished, angry and saddened.
A teenage girl, accompanied by her mother, went to a hospital seeking care and comfort. What followed was a series of failures that left her uninformed, medically vulnerable and ultimately treated in a hostile and accusatory manner. Two hundred years ago, Martha Ballard understood something that should never be lost in modern medicine: she was treating a human being. Respect. Compassion. Communication. Basic dignity. Those should not be historical artifacts.