Mexican Woman Gives Birth on Clinic Lawn (Photo)

Degrading and Scandalous: The disturbing photo of Irma Lopez, 29, delivering outside a Mexican clinic

Above is a disturbing photograph of an indigenous woman from Mexico delivering a baby on a patch of grass outside a medical center. It has set off a firestorm online and sparked a national debate that led to the suspension of the head of the Mexican clinic that turned the mother away.

The shocking image, taken by a passerby, shows 29-year-old Irma Lopez, who is of Mazatec ethnicity, squatting while giving birth, her face contorted in pain and her tiny newborn son still bound by the umbilical cord and lying on the ground. Sad. 

The government of the southern state of Oaxaca announced Wednesday that it has suspended the health center's director, Dr. Adrian Cruz, while officials conduct state and federal investigations into the October 2 incident.

‘I didn't want to deliver like this. It was so ugly and with so much pain,’ she said, adding she was alone for the birth because her husband was trying to persuade the nurse to call for help.'

Eloy Pacheco Lopez, who was among a number of people drawn to the site by the mother’s screams, took the photo and gave it to a news reporter. It ran in several national newspapers, including the full front page of the tabloid La Razon de Mexico, and was widely circulated on the Internet.

Pacheco López also shared the image on Facebook, writing that 'after waiting and demanding attention for two hours, she gave birth in the yard of the hospital after being ignored by personnel under the direction of the supposed doctor Adrian René Cruz Cabrera.'

The case illustrated the shortcomings of maternal care in Mexico, where hundreds of women still die during or right after pregnancy. It also pointed to still persistent discrimination against Mexico's indigenous people persists.

Lopez was taken in by the clinic after giving birth and discharged the same day with prescriptions for medications and products that cost her about $30, she said. Health officials say she and her baby were in good health.

She said that poverty-stricken villagers are used to being forgotten by Mexico's health care system and left to fend off for themselves.

‘I am naming him Salvador,’ said Lopez, a name that means ‘Savior’ in English. ‘He really saved himself.’