A Lab Test That Experts Liken to a Witch Trial Is Helping Send Women to Prison for Murder

Date:  10-07-2023 The "lung float" test claims to help determine if a baby was born alive or dead, but many medical examiners say it’s too unreliable.

From ProPublica: Inside the medical examiner’s office, two pathologists removed a baby’s lungs from his chest, clamped them together and placed them in a container of water. Then they watched. They were examining the suspicious death of the baby whose body was found in a Maryland home; his mother said he was stillborn. If the lungs floated, the theory behind the test holds, the baby likely was born alive. If they sank, the baby likely was stillborn. “A very simple premise,” the assistant medical examiner later testified. The lungs floated — and the mother was charged with murder. Continue reading