$650,000 Settlement Reached Between Family Whose Baby Was Born Still And Doctor

A woman who has hypertension goes to get advice from her doctor after she finds out that she is pregnant. Her doctor gives her a referral to a obstetrician who will provide her care during her pregnancy. After after having a discussion about her hypertension with her obstetrician, the doctor decides to her hypertension medication based on concerns over the effects it could have on her unborn child. Her obstetrician decides to control her condition through diet and is able to keep her blood pressure down for awhile. However, after a few weeks diet alone is no longer able to control her hypertension and the obstetrician has her take half her normal dose from before her pregnancy.

during the pregnancy the woman's problems came in ebbs and flows. At times things seemed to be fine and then at other times she would have elevated blood pressure, have headaches, nausea, vomiting and blurred vision. As her pregnancy progressed these symptoms seemed to become more frequent and the obstetrician noted that she began to leak amniotic fluid, which detected from the amount of protein that was found in her urine. Furthermore the obstetrician noted that calcifications were present on the placenta, which indicated that parts of the placenta were not getting sufficient oxygen and had died off.

The doctor only informs her about the leakage and tells her not to worry about it. she does not know that there are calcifications on her placenta caused by a lack of oxygen and that her womb does not have sufficient nutrients, both of which can harm her child. The doctor did not tell her that her unborn child may suffer consequences from the lack of adequate oxygen or that her child's central nervous system could be harmed by the lack of nutrients in the womb. Furthermore, she does not know that other tests could have be performed on her unborn child to find out how the baby was doing, but that her doctor opted not to do them. She is only informed that she is suffering from a form of hypertension and that she is leaking a little amniotic fluid.

After this visit the mother is still suffering from sever headaches, begins to have some sinus problems in her ears and becomes concerned as she notices her unborn child is not moving as much. At her next appointment she relays this information to her physician, who determines he needs to induce labor the following week. Although she expresses concern about waiting so long, the physician downplays her fears and makes an appointment for her for the following week.

The next week the mother, accompanied by her family, went to her doctor's office expecting to come home with her new born baby. However, following her ultrasound she knew something was wrong. A nurse brings her into a small non-examination room and has her sit down on a sofa and wait for her physician, who then comes in to tell her that her baby does not have a heartbeat. A trip to the hospital confirms that her baby has died. She is then told that she needs to go into labor now as to prevent any harm to herself. Having already suffered the loss of her baby she is required to suffer the pain of going through labor to delivery a stillborn baby. Following a lawsuit against the physician, the mother and father were able to get a settlement of $650,000.

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Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney focused on complex injury cases, including birth injury medical malpractice cases. To learn more about cases where the baby is born still visit his website at www.birth-injury-malpractice-law.com.

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