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If a newborn with a GBS infection is not treated or improperly treated the newborn can be left with permanent severe disabilities. Given this it is critical for physicians to consider GBS if a newborn shows signs of an infection and either rule it out with diagnostic testing or follow the treatment protocol. Below we examine a lawsuit that resulted after a newborn who showed signs of a GBS infection was not diagnosed in a timely fashion by the physician. Consider a case involving six week old baby who came down with a high fever. The baby's mother took the baby to a pediatrician. The pediatrician was unable to diagnose the cause of the baby's fever and so ordered a series of tests to determine the cause. Unfortunately, the pediatrician, who could have accessed the mother's prenatal care file, did not review it. She also did not ask the mother if she had been tested for GBS during the pregnancy and if she had been administered antibiotics for it while in labor. The pediatrician thus did not realize that the mother had tested positive for GBS during the pregnancy. The pediatrician ordered tests in order to try to figure out what was causing the baby's high fever but she did not administer antibiotics that would have treated the GBS infection. The baby's infection developed into meningitis and the newborn experienced several strokes before the pediatrician received the test results. The meningitis and strokes caused brain damage and the newborn consequently suffered from mental retardation and a seizure disorder that could not be treated with medication. The law firm that represented the mother and her newborn was able to get an admission from the pediatrician that she would have administered antibiotics immediately if she had known that the newborn had prior exposure to the GBS bacteria. The case was reported as settled by the law firm for the amount of $6,150,000. Statistically, it is very unlikely that a newborn with a high fever has a GBS infection. The risk, of course, is that if the newborn does have it and antibiotic treatment is not administered immediately the newborn may end up with permanent severe disabilities. In this case, without the critical piece of information in the mother's prenatal form, the pediatrician gambled on the high likelihood that the baby's symptoms were from something other than a GBS infection and the baby paid the price for her gamble. When a baby displays symptoms that are the result of a GBS infection a physician needs to take immediately action so as to avoid the infection from developing into sepsis, pneumonia or meningitis which can all lead to devastating results. If the physician fails to consider a GBS infection as part of the differential diagnosis thereby delaying treatment with resulting tragic consequences the physician liable under a malpractice claim to recover for the damages suffered by the baby and protect the baby's future.
Article Source: http://www.mycontentbuilder.com
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney focused on catastrophic injury cases. Visit his website to learn more about Group B Strep infection cases.
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