Lawsuit Alleges Baby's Brain Damage Was Due To Pediatrician's Hesitation In Treating Gbs Infection

An expectant mother who is a carrier of the group b strep may transmit the bacteria

to her child during labor whether or not the mother is asymptomatic. Research have shown that between about 25% of pregnant women are colonized with group b streptococcus. If there is no intervention, a child born to a woman who is a carrier of the bacteria has a one in two-hundred chance of developing the infection. By giving the mother the proper antibiotics in the course of labor the chance of the mother transmitting the bacteria to her baby is reduced by 2,000%.

In order to determine which women need to be administered antibiotics while in labor, expecting mothers without any symptoms are screened between the 35th and 37th week of the pregnancy. Undergoing testing for group b strep is a straightforward process. Because the bacteria ordinarily takes hold inside the urinary and vaginal tract of the woman, a swab is used to obtain a sample. The outcome of the screen are routinely obtainable in forty-eight hours.

If a newborn develops a GBS infection but is not treated right away, the infection might turn into pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. Due to the fact a newborn's immune systems is not completely developed, the baby may be left with lifelong physical and neurological injuries that may prevent the child from ever living a normal life. And of the roughly seven thousand six hundred babies each year who become infected between ten to fifteen percent do not survive.

Given the serious threat the infection presents for babies, physicians examining a baby who has symptoms consistent with the infection and whose mother tested positive during the pregnancy need to incorporate it in their differential diagnosis. See, for example, a reported claim in which a baby, born to a woman whose screening test had come back positive earlier in the pregnancy during the pregnancy, started to exhibit signs consistent with a Group B Strep infection shortly after birth. Unfortunately, the pediatrician did not match the symptoms in the infant's postnatal record with the prenatal record which showed that the group b streptococcus bacteria had been detected in the mother during the pregnancy. Thus, the right diagnosis was was untimely and antibiotics were not administered right away.

Due to the time that passed before antibiotics were administered, the child suffered brain damage. The law firm that handled this case reported that they achieved a settlement for the family for $750,000 with the physician and $3,125,000 with the hospital.

Babies can develop the infection even tough antibiotics were given to the mother in the course of labor. A recent study also revealed that a certain number of infants who manifest the infection even though the mother screened negative. Physicians thus ought to consider it as part of their differential diagnosis whenever a baby shows symptoms consistent with group b streptococcus. As this claim shows The failure to check the prenatal chart and to consider Group B Strep might result in liability for medical malpractice.

by: Joseph Hernandez

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