Birth Injuries
The negligence of obstetricians, mid-wives, and nurses can cause premature deliveries, injuries to the mother, birth injuries or fetal death.
Common Cases:
- Failure to diagnose a dangerous condition in the mother such as gestational diabetes or high blood pressure (also known as eclampsia, pre-eclampsia, toxemia, or HELLP).
- Failure to detect a drop in the fetal heart rate, the baby’s way of saying it is not getting enough oxygen to his brain.
- Failure to perform a cesarean section in time.
- Rushing the process of pushing the baby through the birth canal with dangerous instruments such as forceps or a vacuum extractor.
- The use of too much Pitocin (a drug that helps the mother contract and push the baby out)
- Failure to recognize that the baby is large and that the mother would have a hard time pushing the baby out. This may result in shoulder dystocia, a condition where the baby’s shoulders get stuck against the mother’s pubic bone and the baby can’t get out.
- Failure to properly manage shoulder dystocia – usually when the doctor uses forceps, a vacuum extractor or even his hands to pull on the baby’s head to dislodge his shoulders from his mother’s pubic bone. This can result in tragic injuries to the nerves in the baby’s neck. This is known as Brachial Palsy, Brachial Plexus Palsy, or Erb’s Palsy.
Actual Case:
$20.25M awarded in May 2003 in Illinois.
The Case:
delivery delay led to child's cerebral palsy.
The Details:
A pregnant mother was admitted to the hospital with irregular contractions. Her treating obstetrician was on vacation and the defendant doctor was covering his cases. A fetal heart monitor was placed and monitored by nursing staff throughout the day. The doctor phoned in at 8:10 p.m. and was told the mother was not in labor and fetal heart tones were normal, so he ordered the fetal monitor discontinued.
The next day, the doctor delivered the infant via cesarean with low Apgars scores, no breathing, cyanosis and hypoxic ischemia, leaving the infant with severe cerebral palsy, mental retardation and spastic quadriplegia.
The plaintiff contended the hospital nursing staff failed to notify the doctor of fetal heart rate decelerations and negligently followed the order to discontinue the fetal monitor without a doctor examining the patient. The plaintiff argued that the doctor deviated from the standard of care by not seeing the patient before discontinuing the monitor and in failing to conduct a timely cesarean.
The jury awarded a plaintiff verdict in the amount of $20,250,000 against the hospital.
