The death of a baby who was decapitated during delivery was ruled a homicide by a Georgia medical examiner’s office.

The baby died last July after a physician allegedly applied so much force attempting to free the child from a woman’s birth canal that the child’s spine was completely severed. The finding by the authorities appears to confirm allegations made by the family’s attorneys in a lawsuit filed last August against the hospital.

“We just want justice for our son,” the baby’s father, Treveon Taylor Sr, said at a press conference on Wednesday in Atlanta. The baby was named Treveon Taylor Jr after his father. “They lied to us, they ain’t let us touch him, we didn’t like it. We just want justice for our son.”

It was the first time the baby’s father has spoken publicly. The baby’s mother, Jessica Ross, was too distraught to speak at the press conference.

“Tragically, during her delivery, the baby was decapitated,” said Dr Roderick Edmond, an attorney on the family’s legal team.

Ross went to the hospital, Southern Regional medical center, about 13 miles south of downtown Atlanta in July 2023, “with the full expectation of having a healthy baby”, said Edmond.

Instead, Ross suffered early rupture of her membranes, and later her baby was trapped in the birth canal because of a shoulder dystocia, a condition where the baby’s shoulder becomes lodged behind the pubic bone.

“The baby was decapitated, for sure, as a result of a complication of the shoulder dystocia, but the standards of care are very, very simple,” for how to treat shoulder dystocia, Edmond said, involving mechanism maneuvers and, if needed, a cesarean section. Shoulder dystocia affects up to 2% of deliveries.

After the complications became apparent, the mother and child were taken into surgery for a cesarean section. Edmond said it is unclear whether the baby was already deceased when Ross was taken to the operating room.

The Clayton county medical examiner ruled the child’s death a homicide caused by the severing of the C1 and C2 cervical spine vertebrae, two of the uppermost bones in the neck, according to a press release provided to the Guardian. Attorneys for the family emphasized that it was a broken neck, not a relatively common labor complication, that caused the baby’s death.

“The cause of the death, again, was the baby’s neck was broken,” said Edmond. The doctor “was applying excessive traction on the baby’s neck … This is something that is clearly contraindicated.”

Despite the shocking facts behind the child’s death, attorneys for the couple said they were most disturbed by the hospital’s reaction to the case: the family was not allowed to touch or hold their deceased child, and was only allowed to see the baby behind a pane of glass.

“In my opinion, the most offensive aspect of this case lies on the cover-up,” said Edmond. The hospital “failed to tell this couple the details and the specifics of what happened”, said a free autopsy was unavailable and tried to encourage the couple to “get the baby cremated”.

“I’ve dealt with dozens and dozens of cases of fetal death and fetal demise,” said Edmond. “It is normal and right” for parents to say: “‘[I] want to see my baby, I want to hold my baby, I want to touch the baby’s fingers.’”

When the hospital did allow the family to see the child, “They wrapped the baby tightly in a blanket, propped the baby’s head up on a blanket … basically making it look like there was no decapitation, once again defrauding and lying to this young couple.”

The Clayton county medical examiner said its office was only notified of the decapitated child by a funeral home, who thought it was “unusual” the medical examiner’s office was not already involved. The medical examiner’s office has involved police in the investigation, and the case may be referred to the district attorney’s office for prosecution.

A representative for Southern Regional medical center could not be immediately reached for comment. The hospital told CNN on Tuesday it was unable to comment because of pending litigation.