Malpractice Claim Alleges Baby Severely Injured When Doctor Failed To Timely Detect Gbs Infection
When a baby with a GBS infection does not immediately receive antibiotics the results can be devastating
. Given this it is critical for doctors to consider Group B Strep if a baby demonstrates signs of an infection and either rule it out with diagnostic testing or comply with the treatment guidelines. Below we consider a claim that resulted after a newborn who showed symptoms of a Group B Strep infection was not diagnosed in a timely fashion by the physician.Here, an expecting mother underwent screening for GBS while she was in the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh week of her pregnancy. The results from the test were positive for the Group B Strep bacteria. Given this result, while she was in labor at the hospital she was appropriately given antibiotics. Her infant appeared healthy at birth. Bur, 6 weeks after birth the baby started showing signs of infection and the baby's mother took the child to a pediatrician who observed that the baby had a high fever. The doctor, unfortunately, did not review the prenatal records although she had access to them.
Without seeing the prenatal records the physician just ordered testing so as to establish what was causing the baby's high fever. By failing to immediately administer antibiotics the doctor let vital time to go by during which the baby became septic, developed meningitis and sustained strokes. Because of this the newborn ended up with an untreatable seizure disorder and with mental retardation.
The law firm that represented the mother and her baby was able to get an admission from the physician that she would have administered antibiotics without delay if she had known that the baby had prior exposure to the GBS bacteria. The case was reported as settled by the law firm for the amount of $6,150,000.
There is a key point that this case brings out. If a baby exhibits signs that are consistent with a Group B Strep infection a physician needs to take fast action so as to avoid the infection from developing into sepsis, pneumonia or meningitis which may all lead to disastrous outcomes. When, as in the case discussed above, the physician acts as if it is not even a possibility, particularly when there is information in the mother's prenatal chart to suggest it could be, and the baby is permanently harmed by the delay in treatment, the doctor may be liable for malpractice.
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