$3.875 Million Settlement For Baby's Brain Injury After Pediatrician Did not Consider That Infant Had Dangerous Infection
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-11-19 23:21:29 | Word Count: 562
An expectant mother who is a carrier of the Group b strep may transfer the bacteria to her child during labor whether or not the mother does not present any symptoms. Research demonstrate that between 15% to 40% of pregnant women have Group b strep. Without intervention, an infant born to a woman who with GBS has a 1 in 200 chance of developing a Group B Strep infection. By administering appropriate antibiotics in the course of labor the likelihood of the mother passing the Group b strep bacteria to her child is diminished by 2,000%.
In order to figure out which women need to be administered antibiotics during labor, asymptomatic pregnant women are screened for group b streptococcus between the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh week of the pregnancy. Getting tested for group b strep is a straightforward procedure. Since the bacteria mostly lives inside the urinary and vaginal tract of the mother, a swab is used to get a sample. The outcome of the screen are typically obtainable in forty-eight hours.
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If a baby develops a gorup b strep infection but is not treated in a timely basis, the infection may develop into pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. Due to the fact a baby's immune systems is not fully developed, the infant might be left with lifelong physical and neurological damage that may prevent the child from ever living a normal life. And of the roughly seventy-six hundred babies who are estimated to be infected this year with group b streptococcus there is a mortality rate of 10-15%.
With the serious threat a Group B Strep infection presents for infants, physicians examining an infant who has symptoms consistent with a GBS infection and whose mother tested positive during the pregnancy ought to include it in their differential diagnosis. Examine, for instance, a sent to claim in which an infant, born to a woman whose GBS screening test had come back positive earlier in the pregnancy during the pregnancy, started to show signs consistent with a Group B Strep infection shortly after birth. But, the pediatrician did not match the symptoms in the infant's postnatal chart with the prenatal chart which indicated that mother had tested positive for the bacteria during the pregnancy. Because of this, the right diagnosis was delayed and antibiotics were not used immediately.
Due to the delay, the infant suffered brain damage. The law firm that represented the family reported that the case settled for $3,875,000
Infants can develop the Group B Strep infection even tough antibiotics were given to the mother while in labor. A recent study also showed that a certain number of babies who manifest the infection even when the mother screened negative. Physicians thus need to consider it as part of their differential diagnosis whenever a baby exhibits symptoms consistent with GBS . As this lawsuit illustrates Not reading the prenatal records or considering Group B Strep may result in liability for medical malpractice.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting birth injury cases. For additional information about group b streptococcus and other birth injury cases including those involving erbs palsy matters visit the websites
