Family Reaches Settlement In Medical Malpractice Claim For Their Child's Brian Injury

A mother who is a carrier of the group b streptococcus can transmit the bacteria to her baby during labor even when the mother is asymptomatic. Research have shown that between approximately twenty-five percent of expecting mothers have group b strep. If there is no intervention, a baby 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 bacteria to her infant is decreased to approximately 1 in 4,000.

In order to figure out which women should be administered antibiotics during labor, pregnant women without any symptoms are tested for GBS between the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh week of the pregnancy. Getting tested is a straightforward process. Given that the bacteria generally lives inside the urinary and vaginal tract of the pregnant woman, a swab is used to acquire a sample. The results of the test are generally obtainable in 48 hours.

If a baby acquires a GBS infection and is not treated immediately, the infection can develop into pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. Given that a baby's immune systems is not completely developed, the newborn might be left with lifelong physical and neurological damage that may prevent the child from ever living a normal life. And of the roughly 7,600 infants who are estimated to be infected this year ten to fifteen percent wii not survive.

With the considerable threat the infection presents for newborns, physicians examining an infant who has signs consistent with a GBS infection and whose mother tested positive during the pregnancy ought to incorporate it in their differential diagnosis. See, for example, a reported case in which a child, born to a woman who had tested positive for the bacteria during the pregnancy, started to display signs consistent with a Group B Strep infection shortly after birth. But, the pediatrician did not correlate the symptoms in the child's postnatal record with the prenatal record which contained information that mother had tested positive for the bacteria during the pregnancy. Consequently, the correct diagnosis was postponed and antibiotics were not used immediately.

Because of the delay, the baby sustained a brain injury. The law firm that helped the family described that they were able to reach a settlement on behalf of the family for $750,000 with the doctor and $3,125,000 with the hospital.

Newborns can develop the infection even if antibiotics were given to the mother during labor. A recent study also showed that a certain number of babies who develop the infection even if the mother tested negative. Doctors thus ought to consider it as part of their differential diagnosis whenever a baby shows symptoms consistent with the infection. As this lawsuit illustrates The failure to check the prenatal chart and to consider Group B Strep may result in liability for medical malpractice.