Articles Tagged with child birth malpractice

Late last month, a Georgia jury awarded $30.5 million to the family of a child who suffered a catastrophic brain injury while being delivered.  The child’s mother presented to her OB-GYN for a regularly-scheduled visit at 35 weeks, where a non-stress test was performed and found to be non-reactive.  A few days after that scheduled visit, the mother returned for an unscheduled visit with a chief complaint of reduced or absent fetal movement.  A second non-stress test was again non-reactive and an ultrasound demonstrated possibility of reversal end diastolic blood flow, a severe condition that results from an increase in resistance to blood flow within the placenta.

Last year, a judge in an Ohio medical malpractice case awarded $24.9 million to a child born with cerebral palsy and to his parents.  According to the lawsuit, the boy, born in 2010, suffered a deprivation of oxygen during his birth.  The family alleged that the signs and symptoms of fetal distress were not recognized or acted upon in a timely fashion, despite the use of a fetal heart monitor.  The lack of oxygen resulted in a severe and irreversible brain injury that caused developmental delays and inability to function as a normal child.

The mother to a son born with cerebral palsy will eventually receive the full judgment of $10 million awarded to her by a Florida jury for medical malpractice, but she’ll have to wait for half of it. In 2003, while six months pregnant, the woman was to be transported after one hospital determined it didn’t have the right equipment to handle a premature baby and another said it lacked specialists for extremely premature births. Both of those hospitals, and doctors from each, were originally involved, but settled for a total of $1.4 million. Ultimately, however, the woman gave birth on the way to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando while in an ambulance. The child survived but suffered severe brain damage as a result of a lack of oxygen. In a medical negligence case, a jury found the Florida ambulance provider, EVAC, negligent for both the care they provided and for accepting the initial transport order.

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