$3.875 Million Settlement For Baby's Brain Injury When Pediatrician Failed to Consider That Infant Had GBS
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-08-25 11:15:53 | Word Count: 579
A pregnant woman who is a carrier of the Group b strep can transfer the bacteria to her child during labor even when the mother does not present any symptoms. Studies have shown that between fifteen to forty percent of expecting mothers are carriers of Group b strep. Lacking treatment, a child born to a woman who with GBS has a 1 in 200 possibility of developing a Group B Strep infection. By administering appropriate antibiotics as she starts labor the chance that she will pass the Group b strep bacteria to her child is diminished by 2,000%.
So as to determine which expecting mothers require antibiotics in the course of labor, asymptomatic pregnant women are tested for group b strep approximately from the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh week of the pregnancy. Getting tested for Group B Strep is a straightforward process. Since the bacteria normally takes hold inside the urinary and vaginal tract of the woman, a swab is used to acquire a sample. The outcome of the test are typically accessible inside forty-eight hours.
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In case a newborn acquires a group b streptococcus infection but is not treated immediately, the infection could develop into pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. Due to the fact a newborn's immune systems is not totally developed, the infant may be left with lifelong physical and neurological harm that may prevent the child from ever living a normal life. And of the roughly seven thousand six hundred newborns each year who become infected with Group B Strep ten to fifteen percent do not survive.
With the significant risk a Group B Strep infection poses for infants, physicians examining an infant who has symptoms consistent with a GBS infection and whose mother tested positive during the pregnancy need to include it in their differential diagnosis. Examine, for instance, a reported claim in which a child, born to a woman whose GBS screening test had come back positive earlier in the pregnancy during the pregnancy, began to show indications consistent with a Group B Strep infection shortly after birth. But, the pediatrician failed to match the symptoms in the infant's postnatal record with the prenatal chart which showed that the group b streptococcus bacteria had been detected in the mother during the pregnancy. Consequently, the correct diagnosis was was untimely and antibiotics were not used in a timely manner.
Because of the time that passed before antibiotics were administered, the child suffered brain damage. The law firm that represented the family reported that the case settled for $3,875,000
Babies can acquire a group b streptococcus infection even tough antibiotics were administered to the mother while in labor. A recent study also revealed that a certain number of babies who develop the infection even when the mother tested negative. Doctors thus ought to consider it as part of their differential diagnosis whenever a baby shows signs consistent with group b strep . As this matter illustrates Not reading the prenatal records or considering Group B Strep might constitute liability for medical malpractice.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting medical malpractice cases. For additional information about group b streptococcus and other birth injury cases including those involving erb's palsy matters visit the websites
