Infant Sustains Permanent Disability After Nurse Didn't Detect Signs Of Placental Abruption

Every day expectant mothers put themselves and their unborn baby in the hands of a doctor to help them through childbirth

. It can oftentimes take quite a bit of time after the patient is admitted to the hospital before the newborn is delivered. During some part of this time physicians often rely on the nurses and staff to track the expectant mother's progress and to let them know about of any issues that might arise.

The doctor continues to be accountable for supervising the nurses and staff. Further, the nurses and staff are accountable for having the knowledge, training and experience to recognize symptoms of issues and for telling the doctor if they do come up. However, nurses and staff sometimes do not meet these demands.

Consider the documented case alleging that a pregnant woman at full term began experiencing contractions while at home. On the way the local hospital she began having unrelenting intense pain. Upon reaching the hospital she complained to the nurse that she was in major pain exclaiming that she thought there was a problem. She was taken to the Labor and Delivery unit but the nurse either did not register or ignored her complaints and did not get in touch with the obstetrician, who had not arrived at the hospital, to inform him.

Rather the nurse acted like this was a standard pregnancy. Valuable time went by until she even started checking the fetal heart rate. As soon as she finally did recognize that the unborn baby was suffering from fetal distress. At this time the nurse did inform the obstetrician, who still was not in the hospital, by telephone. Another obstetrician on the unit took charge and performed an emergency C-section.

The extreme pain had been from a placental abruption. The abruption cased the unborn child to experience a lack of oxygen leading to severe brain injury. The newborn is disabled for life and requires 24/7 care. The law firm that handled this matter announced that they were able to accomplish a $4,500,000 settlement $4,500,000 from the hospital for the nursing not realizing that the mother had experienced an abruption.

In this matter the patient basically flagged the nurse of her sense that something had gone wrong with the pregnancy. At this point in the pregnancy major continual abdominal pain can be caused by an abruption. It is not known why the nurse failed to put these together. Regardless if she dismissed the patient's complaints, did not hear them, failed to have the necessary knowledge, training or experience to correctly understand the situation, or discounted the patient's complaints on the grounds that a placental abruption is regularly (though not every time) accompanied by visible vaginal bleeding, she overlooked symptoms of a serious complication.

The result, however, was a serious injury to the unborn baby resulting in a permanent disability. Owing to the injury caused by the nurse's mistake the law firm that handled this matter reported that it was able to achieve a settlement designed to be enough so that the child has proper care for life.

by: Joseph Hernandez

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