Entering the hospital for an impending birth is a truly exciting yet altogether nerve-wracking time for an expectant couple. While they may try their best to remember everything they learned in their birthing classes leading up to the big day, they may just as easily find themselves forgetting everything despite their best efforts, finally choosing to just focus on the soon-to-be mother’s breathing and trusting in the attending physicians to make sure everything proceeds as planned.

The unfortunate reality, however, is that this trust is sometimes violated, as the attending physicians make grievous medical mistakes and compound the problem by failing to take the necessary remedial actions.

To illustrate, consider the case of a young military couple stationed at Fort Hood, who entered the base’s medical center in anxious anticipation of the arrival of their son only to be victimized by medical negligence.

The mother — we’ll call her Kassie — was over 37 weeks pregnant and entered the hospital in September 2008 to have labor induced. Unfortunately, something went terribly wrong during the ensuing birth and her newborn son had to be airlifted to a nearby medical facility where he was hospitalized for eight days.

In the aftermath of this traumatic experience, the attending physicians informed Kassie that her son had suffered severe brain damage during the birth and that he would likely develop cerebral palsy, seeming to characterize the condition as something like a hereditary birth defect.

For her part, however, Kassie felt that something was amiss with this explanation and began exploring this claim by the attending physicians. It turns out she was right to follow her instincts.

“[Cerebral palsy] is nothing inherited, it’s a trauma,” she said.

To be continued …

Please contact a legal professional to learn more if you feel that a serious birth injury can be attributed to a failure by the OB/GYN to monitor the health of your baby.

Source: The Killeen Daily Herald, “Judge: Darnall negligent during birth,” Rose Thayer, Dec. 5, 2013