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$1,000,000 Settlement In Lawsuit For Baby With Lifelong Impairments
Consider the case in which a hospital admitted an expectant mother experiencing active labor from her pregnancy. The nurse who monitored the woman’s progress interpreted the output from the fetal heart rate monitor as reassuring. This went on for 9 hours. At that point there was an ominous development. The fetal heart rate monitor showed a constant rise in the unborn baby’s heart rate. The rate gpt up to 170-180 beats per minute. The doctor in charge of the expectant mother's care knew of the change in the rate at which the baby’s heart was beating but deemed the situation as a normal labor needing immediate action. The doctor continued with this position and in fact wound up performing a vaginal delivery. Once the baby was born he was transferred to NICU. While there he was in prolonged initial depression and experienced respiratory distress. Testing uncovered that he had bleeding in the brain and that there was an accumulation of blood under the scalp. Within days an MRI showed that the baby had suffered brain damage. This kind of brain injury is consistent with oxygen deprivation before birth which would account for the severe fetal distress that had been revealed by the fetal heart rate monitor. In a matter of days the baby began having seizures. As the child grew it became apparent that he had serious difficulty with speech, and he had problems with motor control. The law firm that pursued this case reported that they settled it on behalf of the child and his family for in the amount of $1.0 million. This lawsuit demonstrates an all too typical phenomenon. The physician was presented with a situation in which the unborn baby was obviously in fetal distress. The doctor nonetheless continued as if labor was advancing normally. The physician saw the complication taking place and worsening literally right in front of his eyes. It is as if as time went on this doctor’s threshold for realizing that the baby was in danger became increasingly hard to fulfill so that although the fetal distress had reached an ominous stage, the physician still proceeded with a vaginal delivery as opposed to performing an emergency C-section. This doctor acted as though the patient was a woman with a perfectly normal labor. All the signs required to recognize that the child was in fetal distress and needed attention immediately were present, right in front of the doctor. It is hard to say whether this doctor walked away with a lesson from this mistake so as not to repeat it again with another baby in the future. In cases in which a doctor has made an error that permanently harms a child, however, an experienced birth injury lawyer can assist the family In pursuing a claim to protect the child’s future. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting birth injury medical malpractice cases. You can learn more about fetal distress and other types of birth injuries including group b strep matters by visiting the websites |
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