A Utah woman was charged with murder after she repeatedly refused a Caesarean because she feared the scars and one of her twins was stillborn, officials said on Friday.
Salt Lake County prosecutors charged Ms Melissa Ann Rowland, 28, on yesterday with criminal homicide after she was warned by doctors late last year and again in early January to get medical attention for the twins she was carrying.
The twins were delivered on January 13th and one of them, a boy, was stillborn.
"The charges, though unusual are justified," said Kent Morgan, deputy Salt Lake County prosecutor. "She was giving more weight to vanity than to the human life."
The woman declined the Caesarean section because she said she feared being scarred by the surgery.
"Even though she may not have intended to kill the child, she had a state of mind of utter callousness and indifference for his life," Morgan said.
The woman's attorney Michael Sikora told The Salt Lake Tribune that his client had a long history of mental illness and was first committed to a hospital at age 12.
According to court documents Rowland was told by physicians from three hospitals to have a C-section because her unborn children were in danger.
Court documents said Rowland told a nurse the surgery would "ruin her life" and she would rather "lose one of the babies than be cut like that."
An autopsy found the baby died two days before delivery and could have survived if the recommended surgery had been performed, according to court documents.