subject: $4,500,000 Recovery For Baby's Brain Injury From Nurse's Failure To Notice Placental Abruption [print this page] Every day expectant mothers put themselves and their unborn baby in the care of a doctor who will help them through childbirth. It may oftentimes take quite a bit of time after the patient is admitted to the hospital until the newborn is delivered. Throughout somepart of this time doctors tend to depend on the nurses and staff to track the expectant mother's situation and to let them know about of any issues that might arise.
The physician remains responsible for supervising the nurses and staff. Also, the nurses and staff are accountable for having the knowledge, training and experience to identify signs of issues and for telling the doctor when they do arise. However, nurses and staff sometimes fail to meet these standards.
Consider the published claim alleging that a pregnant woman at full term commenced going through contractions at at home. On the way the local hospital she began having unrelenting major pain. When she showed up at the hospital she told the nurse that she was in intense pain exclaiming that she believed something was wrong. But the nurse either did not understand or dismissed the womans complaints and did not contact the physician, who had still not arrived at the hospital, to inform him.
Instead the nurse acted as though this was a typical pregnancy. Precious time passed until she even started checking the fetal heart rate. Once she at last did figure out that the unborn child was experiencing fetal distress. At this point she did advise the obstetrician, who even now had not come to the hospital, by telephone. A different physician on the unit took over and performed an emergency C-section. The severe pain was a result of a placental abruption. The placental abruption cased the unborn child to experience a lack of oxygen causing significant brain injury. The infant is disabled for life and has to have full time care. The law firm that handled this lawsuit documented that they were able to obtain a $4,500,000 settlement $4,500,000 from the hospital for the nursing staffs failure to recognize that the mother had experienced a placental abruption.
In this lawsuit the patient in fact flagged the nurse of her sensation that a complication had developed in the pregnancy. At this stage in the pregnancy severe continual abdominal pain can be due to a placental abruption. It is not clear why the nurse did not put these together. Regardless if she dismissed the patients complaints, failed to hear them, did not have the necessary knowledge, training or experience to correctly interpret the situation, or discounted her complaints since a placental abruption is regularly (though not every time) associated with observable vaginal bleeding, she overlooked indications of a dangerous complication.
The result, unfortunately, was a severe injury to the unborn child producing a lifelong disability. On account of the damage caused by the nurses error the law firm that represented the family documented a settlement intented to ensure that the child has necessary care for life.
by: Joseph Hernandez
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