Family Of Stillborn Child Settle Lawsuit With Physician

A woman with hypertension seeks guidance from her physician after she finds out that she is pregnant. Her doctor gives her a referral to an obstetrician who will provide her care during her pregnancy. At the beginning of her pregnancy her obstetrician had her stop taking her hypertension medication as it might be bad for her unborn child. However, a short time later diet by itself was no longer could not control her hypertension and the obstetrician has her take half her normal dose prior to the pregnancy.

Although she is taking medication for her hypertension, the mother begins to get headaches, suffer from nausea, vomiting and blurred vision, that progressively become more frequent later on in her pregnancy.

As her pregnancy progressed these issues seemed to happen more frequently and the doctor recorded that she started to leak amniotic fluid, which detected from the amount of protein that was found in her urine. Moreover the doctor noted that calcifications were on the placenta, indicating that portions of the placenta did not get sufficient oxygen and had died off.

The physician only tells her about the leakage but tells her not to worry about it. she does not know that there are calcifications on her placenta caused by a lack of oxygen and that her womb is nutriently deficient, both of which could potentially harm her and her child. The physician failed to tell her that her baby could suffer consequences from a lack of adequate oxygen or that her child's central nervous system could be harmed by the lack of nutrients in the womb. moreover, she does not know that other tests should have been conducted on her unborn child to determine how the child was developing, but that her physician chose not to do them. She was only told that she is suffering from a form of hypertension and that she is leaking a little amniotic fluid.

Due to these ongoing problems, the the woman's mother goes with her to her next appointment. The mother tells her obstetrician that since the previous appointment her child has not been moving as much and that she continues to suffer from headaches and now has sinus drainage in her ears. As her condition is getting worse, her obstetrician tells her that he will schedule an appointment the following week to induce labor. Despite the mother and maternal grandmother's concerns, the physician tells them not to be concerned and that the child is better off where she is now.

The following week the woman , accompanied by her family, went to her doctor's office thinking she would go home with a newborn baby. But, after her ultrasound she knew something was wrong. A nurse took her into a small non-examination room and had her sit down on a sofa and wait for her obstetrician. Her doctor then comes in to give her the terrible news that her child did not have a heartbeat. After arriving at a hospital, the obstetrician was able to confirm that her child had died and that they must induce labor without delay so as to not risk injury to the mother. Following this event the parents filed a malpractice claim against the obstetrician, seeking damages fro the loss of their baby, including emotional distress. Following the filing of the claim against the doctor, the law firm that assisted theparents published that they obtained a settlement of $650,000 on behalf of the parents.