'They stole my baby': Brazilian woman accuses hospital of snatching child from womb after doctors tell her she had 'phantom' pregnancy

Layane Santos received pre-natal treatment during her entire pregnancy

After a C-section doctors told the 19-year-old her the baby never existed

Lawyers say they will now ask a judge to seize hospital records



Last December, in a different case, Layane Santos said she received pre-natal treatment during her entire pregnancy

A Brazilian woman has accused a hospital of stealing the baby from her womb after she woke up from her C-section to be told her pregnancy had been 'psychological'.

Layane Santos, 19, says she was in her 38th week of pregnancy when she was rushed to a maternity hospital in Sao Paulo, south east Brazil, with abdominal pain and blood loss.

She had received pre-natal treatment during her entire pregnancy, with nurses recording the growing size of her baby and even measuring the foetal heart beats.

According to Ultimo Segundo , Ms Santos, a kitchen assistant, even had an ultra-sound scans in the final week of her pregnancy, which showed she was carrying a baby girl who weighed 7lbs and measured 42cm.

She and her husband Lourival Alves, 28, had already named their daughter Sofia, and had moved to a larger house and had spent pounds £2,000 on clothes and furniture for their first child, according to Brazil's Tribunal Hoje newspaper.

On the day Ms Santos believed her baby would be born, doctors at the Santa Casa de Maua hospital performed yet another ultrasound scan.

Hospital records report that the mother-to-be arrived on December 26 'with vaginal bleeding and abdominal pain, requiring urgent attention.

'The obstetrician diagnosed premature separation of the placenta and the patient was immediately transferred to the operating room.'

Ms Santos claims she told medics that her husband wanted to be present at the baby's birth, but he was never called.

But doctors later claimed they found no baby in Ms Santos' womb and believed her 'pregnancy' had been purely psychological.

Mr Alves said he was called in to the operating room following the C-section.



Traumatic: Layane Santos underwent a C-section on the day she was due to give birth but doctors said there never was a baby

Layane Santos recieved these ultra sound results a week before the delivery showing the size of the baby's head and weight

He said: 'The doctor showed me the empty womb and said that there wasn't any baby. That the pregnancy had been psychological.'

Ms Santos said she passed out moments after receiving the anaesthetic and only woke up later in her hospital room, but never received an explanation from a doctor.

She said: 'My husband told me what the doctors had said, and I became hysterical with despair and cried.

'I asked about the doctor, I wanted to speak with him because I had entered the hospital with a baby inside me but I was leaving without one.

'I can't believe that a child who weighed 7lbs could just disappear in blood. I think they stole the baby, or the baby died while she was being delivered and they didn't want to tell us what happened.



There's no way she could have just vanished from one moment to the next.'



The Santa Casa de Maua hospital claimed exams they performed before the delivery proved Ms Santos was not carrying a baby, but said they 'reserved the right to only present these exams at the opportune moment.'

The couple's lawyer, Leila Salomao, confirmed they have asked a judge to seize the hospital's records relating to Ms Santos.

The doctor responsible for Ms Santos' pre-natal treatment, Uesley Lima, has also reportedly promised to be a witness for the couple if they bring a criminal case against the hospital.

Devastating: Layane and her husband had already named their daughter Sofia and spent thousands of pounds buying furniture for their first child's new room

According to Sylvia Cavalcanti, from the Brazilian Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, a psychological pregnancy can occur when a women 'has an overwhelming desire to have a child'.

She added: 'This can cause the cessation of menstruation due to hormonal changes. She will feel nausea, vomiting, in fact everything she has read about a normal pregnancy.'