Mother plans to sue baby care center

A local woman said Sunday that she plans to sue a baby care center for injuring her 2-month-old son.

The mother, surnamed Li, began taking her son to a baby care center in Xuhui district on March 3 to treat his undeveloped thighbone, she told the Global Times.

The exercise involved gently pushing and pulling the baby's legs to help stretch them out.

"The doctor advised us to perform the exercise on the baby at home, or take him to a baby care center where such services are commonly available," the baby's father said.

Baby care centers typically provide swimming, cleaning and massage services for babies. Li said she took the boy for the exercise eight or nine times before he was injured.

On March 14, the boy started crying during the exercise, according to his grandmother, who had taken him to the center that day. The family immediately took the baby to the hospital, where they found that his thighbone had been fractured, according to the report in the Shanghai Morning Post.

The care center denied that it was responsible for the child's injury. "The nurse never performed the exercise on the baby," the center manager told the Global Times.

The manager said the baby began to cry before the nurse began the exercise.

The baby suffers from Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip (DDH), which requires surgery in serious cases, said Liu Zhongtang, a bone disorders specialist at the Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital.

DDH can interfere with a child's ability to move, and exercises offered at care centers can improve the condition if it is not serious, said Jin Xingming, a doctor at the Shanghai Children's Medical Center.

Liu said there is only a slim chance a baby will suffer a fracture during the exercise, if it is done properly. But even if a baby's leg was fractured before it went in for the exercise, the center's staff is still to blame.

"The care center is responsible for the baby's injury because it should have spotted that he was unfit for the exercise," Liu told the Global Times.

Legally, however, the case may be harder to win, said Li Xiaohua, a lawyer at the Shanghai Lixiaohua Law Firm. The mother will have to provide evidence showing that her baby was uninjured before he went to the center.