Mom: "It's not OK what they did to me," after birth injury is investigated as child abuse

A local mother claims ProMedica Monroe Regional Hospital didn't treat her newborn's injury, ignored her concerns, and then called Child Protective Services on her.

It's a story of how what doctors call a common birth injury turned into a case of alleged child abuse.

For a mother, it's hard to imagine anything worse than to be labeled a child abuser.

For Kiara Doom, she says that nightmare became a reality just five days after her daughter Aryn's birth.

Medical experts say a fractured collar bone is one of the most common types of birth injuries, especially in "big babies" like Aryn, born at 8 pounds, 14.5 ounces.

That's something Doom, a former labor and delivery nurse and current mother of three, is well aware of.

"The whole circumstance was terrible," she said.

She says her now 6-month-old daughter was born with a broken collar bone and after delivery, she noticed Aryn was turning purple.

"I'm seriously concerned about this arm not moving. The collar bone is still swollen and bruised," Doom said.

Her husband asked for an X-ray, but the parents say they were repeatedly told everything was fine.

"They're making me feel nuts. You're the mom, not the nurse. It's OK," she said.

Except for two nurses' notes, all medical records indicate the baby was perfectly healthy after birth.

"I knew something was wrong, that motherly thing," Doom said.

Doom has kept documentation of everything and showed 13abc what she says are all of the records.

Aryn was born on a Monday and they were discharged from the hospital on a Wednesday. Then on Friday, the concerned mother took her newborn to visit a pediatrician.

"We go get the X-ray and I'm standing right in the room with her and I see it come up on the screen, clear broke in half," she said.

Furious, she went to speak with the manager of the OB Unit at the ProMedica Monroe Regional Hospital.

"A doctor let us go with me pointing it out, I said. And my daughter really does have a broken collar bone, shame on you. Please educate your staff so that nobody goes through this again," she said.

Then that night, Child Protective Services knocked on the door.

At just five days old, Kiara says Aryn had 24 X-rays done to verify that she had no other broken bones.

The pediatrician she saw who diagnosed the fracture wrote a letter to confirm the injury was from birth.

Even with the CPS finding of "no preponderance," which means that the evidence did not support any kind of abuse, Aryn's medical records indicate "alleged child abuse."

The Dooms met with ProMedica's legal team and say the health care company did foot the bill for the CPS ordered ER visit.

"We finally met and were basically told with finality 'Sorry, we're not sorry.' All I wanted were those words removed from my daughter's chart," Doom said.

Kiara hopes others can learn from her story, but she is worried for the future.

"If she falls off the slide in a year, two years ... I don't want them to think that I'm harmful to my child, because that's the picture that's been painted," she said.

13abc did reach out to ProMedica. Here's a statement from a spokesperson.

“ProMedica takes all patient concerns very seriously. We have worked with the Doom family regarding this matter. The family’s concerns were investigated. The actions ProMedica took were deemed to be appropriate.”