Birthing Malpractice in USA
Famous Medical Malpractice cases
"In our decades of experience as legal representatives, we recognize the most common factor involved in preventable accidents is negligence. Civil law revolves around the legal concept of negligence. If a birth injury occurs, there is a good chance it has a foundation in negligence, or medical malpractice. The acting physician might be negligent in monitoring the mother and child’s vital signs, detecting problems, and taking proper emergency action. A nurse might be negligent in caring for a newborn. A hospital may have failed in fulfilling protocol."
WHAT TYPE OF MEDICAL MALPRACTICE HAPPENS MOST?
- Birth Injury
-Obstetricians, doctors, surgeons, and nurses are responsible for bringing new lives into the world safely, properly, and without preventable issues. While complications can arise with any birth, one problem parents cannot – and should not have to – prepare for is the negligence or incompetence of a physician or other medical professional.
- Infants suffering from common birth injuries such as:
- Bone fractures
- Cephalohematoma
- Cerebral palsy
- Erb’s palsy
- Facial paralysis
- Hypoxia
- Brachial plexus injuries
- Severe jaundice
- Shoulder dystocia
- Spinal cord injuries
- Wrongful death**
1. Duty. The first element in proving a birth injury claim is showing that here was a professional relationship between the child and the defendant. This means establishing that there was a doctor-patient relationship involved. In these types of relationships, physicians owe certain duties of professional care. Some of the duties that physicians and other medical professionals owe in these situations include:
- Providing a certain standard of skill and care to the mother and child
- Acting in a way that a reasonable and prudent medical professional would act under the circumstances
- Tending to the patient’s medical needs
- Accurately diagnosing a patient based on available tests and information
- Referring patients to specialists when the care falls outside of the medical professional’s scope of care
- Treating the patient based on their diagnosis
2. Breach. After establishing a duty of care existed between the plaintiff and the defendant, it must be shown that the defendant breached their duty of care in some way. This can occur in a variety of ways for a medical malpractice claim, including:
- Failing to diagnose maternal infections or other conditions during pregnancy
- Prescribing the wrong medication to the mother
- Failing to monitor signs of fetal distress during labor and delivery
- Lack of adequate knowledge when handling birth complications
- Failing to order a C-section when one was necessary
- Using inappropriate or dangerous birthing techniques
- Misuse of birthing tools
- Negligence after the birth occurs, including failing to diagnose jaundice or meconium aspiration
3. Causation. After establishing that a breach of duty of care occurred, it must be shown how this breach directly caused the birth injury in question. Just because a breach of duty occurred does not necessarily mean that the breach caused the birth injury in question. There are certainly times when medical professionals make mistakes, but they take the steps necessary to adequately address these mistakes when they occur. If a mistake happens and does not cause an injury, there will not be enough evidence to pursue a medical malpractice claim.
4. Damages. Finally, the plaintiff must establish that they suffered some sort of monetary loss as a result of the breach of duty that caused the birth injury. This can include a range of losses, including medical bills, disability costs, loss of quality of life, pain and suffering, mental anguish, and more.**
Excerpts** See link below for more information:
https://www.bluegrassjustice.com/famous-medical-malpractice-cases/
More Articles of Malpractice in the United States of America:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK217698/
https://www.hg.org/california-medical-malpractice.asp
https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/hwlj11&div=8&id=&page=
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1748-720X.1992.tb01220.x
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijrmed/2018/5945060/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218661/
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Founder Eileen Felix