Serious complications can take place after a pregnant woman goes enters labor and before she delivers her baby. Doctors are responsible for monitoring the woman's labor. They are also responsible for recognizing signs that a complication has arisen which can place the health of the unborn baby at risk. They are also responsible for taking appropriate, timely action. When they fail to do so, as when a doctor stubbornly insists that the labor is proceeding normally and that the unborn baby is fine even when the data clearly shows otherwise, the outcome can be a child with a permanent disability - a disability that was preventable.
Consider the following case:
In this case an expectant mother was admitted to the hospital. She was already in active labor at the time of admission. In the course of the nine hours following her admission the nurse monitoring her condition noted that the tracing from the fetal heart rate monitor was reactive and reassuring. The unborn baby's heart rate then began to climb. The fetal heart rate actually reached the 170-180 beats per minute range and still the obstetrician continued to take the position that this was normal and that there was not any need for emergency action. Eventually, the obstetrician went ahead with a vaginal delivery.
After the delivery the baby is transferred to NICU. While there he is in prolonged initial depression and experiences respiratory distress. Testing reveals that he has bleeding in the brain with an accumulation of blood under the scalp. Within days an MRI shows that the baby has brain damage. The type of brain damage is consistent with the loss of oxygen prior to birth - a situation that would account for the extreme fetal distress noted in the fetal heart rate monitor. A few days later he began having seizures. As the baby grew it became clear that he has serious difficulty with speech, and he has problems with motor control.
The law firm that handled this case reported that they were able to obtain a settlement on behalf of the child and his family in the amount of $1 million.
This case illustrates an all too common phenomenon. The doctor was presented with a situation in which the unborn baby was clearly in fetal distress. The doctor nonetheless continued as though labor was proceeding normally. The doctor saw the complication taking place and worsening literally right before his eyes. It is as if as time went on this doctor's threshold for recognizing that the baby was in trouble became more and more difficult to meet so that even when the fetal distress was at a critical point, the doctor still proceeded with a vaginal delivery instead of performing an emergency C-section.
The obstetrician actually acted in a way consistent with the belief that everything was fine during labor. Attorneys who handle medical malpractice cases see this phenomenon all too frequently. Unfortunately, while one would expect that doctors who makes such a mistake will learn from it, sometimes they fight any suggestion that they did anything improper instead. Once a doctor has made a mistake that permanently harms a child, however, an experienced birth injury attorney can help the family achieve a recovery that protects the child's future.
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