Articles Posted in Birth Injury

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On June 6, 2006, the newborn baby, America Camacho, was delivered by the defendant obstetrician, Dr. Sonya Thomas, at Norwegian American Hospital in Chicago. Baby America weighed 10.5 pounds at birth. A medical negligence lawsuit was filed against Dr. Thomas and Norwegian American Hospital. The family of America maintained that Dr. Thomas chose not to review a June 1, 2006 prenatal ultrasound report, negligently chose not to suspect fetal macrosomia based on the ratio of the fetal head circumference to abdominal circumference, and relied solely upon the estimated fetal weight measurement of just under 8 pounds before the vaginal delivery.

Fetal macrosomia is a medical term used to describe a newborn whose size at birth is significantly larger than average. A baby diagnosed with fetal macrosomia will have a birth weight of more than 8 pounds, 13 ounces (4000 grams).

Fetal macrosomia poses health risks for the baby and the mother. One of the most common dangers to the unborn fetus is injury to the baby’s shoulder or injury to the important nerves in the baby’s shoulder area that control movement and arm function.
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Andrew and Marni Hotchkiss, a couple in their 30s, were struggling with infertility. They consulted an obstetrician and infertility physician, Dr. Siu Ng-Wagner. The couple and the doctor agreed to use a gestational carrier. As the Hotchkiss family selected potential surrogates online, the couple sent these candidates to Dr. Ng-Wagner for medical screening. Dr. Ng-Wagner subsequently interviewed Christina Jensen and told the Hotchkiss family that everything was “all clear.”

Jensen delivered the Hotchkiss’s baby at 25 weeks gestation after developing pre-eclampsia during the pregnancy. The newborn child developed sepsis and died just 3 weeks after birth.
The Hotchkisses filed a lawsuit against Dr. Ng-Wagner and her medical practice claiming that she chose not to review Jensen’s medical records before recommending her as a suitable surrogate.

This would have revealed Jensen’s history of pre-eclampsia in her pregnancy the year before the Hotchkiss’s baby’s birth. The plaintiffs also argued that Dr. Ng-Wagner had a duty to inform the Hotchkisses that she had not reviewed Jensen’s records before clearing her to be named a surrogate.
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Christina Yarbrough and David Goodpaster brought a medical negligence lawsuit against Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) and Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation (NMFF) after the premature birth of their daughter, Hayley Joe Goodpaster. This case came to the Illinois Appellate Court by the request of NMH regarding the doctrine of apparent authority in the medical negligence context. The trial court certified a question of law pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 308.

The question was this: “Can a hospital be held vicariously liable under the doctrine of apparent agency set forth in Gilbert v. Sycamore Mun. Hosp., 156 Ill.2d 511 (Ill. 1993), and its progeny for the acts of the employees of an unrelated, independent clinic that is not a party to the present litigation?”

The case involved Christina Yarbrough, who believed she was pregnant. She went to Erie Family Health Center Inc. (Erie) a federally funded, not-for-profit clinic on Nov. 14, 2005 after searching the Internet for a nearby clinic offering free pregnancy testing. After receiving a positive pregnancy test, healthcare workers at Erie inquired where Yarbrough would receive prenatal care. Yarbrough was advised that if she obtained prenatal care from Erie, she would deliver at NMH and would receive testing and additional care at NMH, including ultrasounds. She was given a pamphlet and a flyer with information regarding scheduling tours and classes at NMH. The plaintiffs in this case alleged that based on her knowledge of NMH’s reputation and the information provided by Erie, Yarbrough believed that if she received prenatal care from Erie, she would be receiving treatment from NMH health care workers.
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In a significant birth trauma injury case, the mother was given Pitocin while in delivery at the hospital. Labor was more than 14 hours. It was managed by two resident physicians and an attending physician. There were signs of uterine hyperstimulation, which was alleged to have occurred hours before the delivery and followed by hours of obvious fetal distress.

According to the report on this case, a nurse told one of the residents that the fetal monitoring signs indicated fetal distress.  However, even with this information, the physician allegedly concluded there was no fetal distress and instead increased the dose of Pitocin. The nurse reported the fetal monitoring signs of distress to her supervisor who then contacted a more senior resident and the attending physician who then stopped the administration of Pitocin.

The baby was later delivered with the assistance of forceps. At the baby’s delivery, the APGAR scores of 3 at 1 minute and 5 at 5 minutes were charted. The baby, who’s now nearing 7 years old, had suffered a brain injury from inadequate oxygen.

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Llulin Cruz, 31, was admitted to St. Barnabas Hospital to deliver her first child. The attending obstetrician was Dr. Michael Ihemaguba, who performed a midline episiotomy after he delivered the baby’s head. Dr. Ihemaguba then told Cruz to continue pushing. This resulted in a fourth-degree laceration, which Dr. Ihemaguba then repaired. The next day, Cruz complained of vaginal gas and Dr. Ihemaguba told her this would improve over time.

About 5 months later, Cruz became pregnant with her second child. She consulted midwife Gloria Murray for prenatal care and told her that she had fecal-smelling vaginal discharge. Murray called Dr. Ihemaguba and told him about Cruz’s symptoms. Dr. Ihemaguba instructed Murray to do nothing, but he told her to send Cruz to him after the baby was born.

After the vaginal delivery, which the midwife performed, Cruz was diagnosed as having a rectal-vaginal fistula. Cruz required 13 surgeries during the next 3 years, including an ileostomy and a “pulled down” procedure involving removal of her rectum. Cruz has lost control of her bowel function and is no longer able to engage in sexual relations. As she ages, her medical condition is expected to worsen, necessitating a permanent colostomy.

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Emanuel A. Friedman M.D. introduced the Friedman Curve in 1955. In a recently submitted article written by Michigan lawyers Jesse M. Reiter and Emily G. Thomas, the authors and stalwarts of the Birth Trauma Litigation Group write that the gold standard for assessing the normal and abnormal progress of labor was changed in 2014. The change by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) replaced Friedman’s curve with new labor standards.

The purpose of the Friedman Curve was to assess labor progression and to identify whether the mother had a “reduced likelihood of a safe vaginal delivery.”  When there was an abnormal progress of labor, such as when neonatal morbidity and mortality were greatly increased, the analysis called on obstetricians to decide very quickly to rescue the unborn baby.

According to the Friedman papers, an “arrest of dilation” was diagnosed by documenting the lack of dilation progress in the active phase of labor. “Protracted active-phase” dilation was defined to be 1.2 cm per hour or 1.5 cm per hour where there was more than one fetus to be delivered.  According to the paper submitted by attorneys Reiter and Thomas, two vaginal examinations done by the same individuals spaced two hours apart was good enough to make this diagnosis. If the cervix did not dilate according to the maximal slope on Friedman’s curve over two hours, the patient was diagnosed with failure to progress/arrest of labor and delivered by Cesarean delivery. Cesarean delivery was then recommended to avoid neonatal death or catastrophic injury. Many studies over the 60 years showed that the research supported the Friedman Curve.

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This was a birth injury case in which the jurors were asked to award up to $7.5 million for a life care plan for the baby girl, Jill Todd, as well as $1.4 million in lost wages and an unspecified amount of damages for pain and suffering. The issue in this case was whether the University of Iowa’s Health Center physicians and staff provided proper care to Jill Todd in November 2010.  After two days of deliberation, the jury returned a 9-1 verdict finding that the University of Iowa Health Center was negligent but that negligence wasn’t “a cause of damage” to the child. This was an odd verdict or at least one that most would consider inconsistent.

Investigators confirmed that they were looking into an unusual claim of jury tampering in this medical malpractice, birth injury case involving the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. As a result of the jury’s unusual verdict, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics paid nothing for the injured child.

After a 3-week trial, the jury found that the hospital was negligent in caring for a mother who suffered complications before giving birth in 2010. But the jurors found that negligence was not a cause of damage to the child. The baby suffered brain damage and is severely disabled. The jury awarded no compensation to the family.

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A Cook County jury entered its verdict in favor of the defendant obstetrician, Dr. Cynthia Page, following a trial claiming that the birth of Anthony Ruiz was delayed causing him a lifetime of cognitive deficits.

The family of Anthony Ruiz, a minor, claimed in their Cook County, Ill., lawsuit that a delay in performing a Cesarean section surgery at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital on Sept. 16, 2010 was the cause of the baby’s cognitive impairments, including a lower IQ, diminished executive function and impaired fine motor skills.

The case centered on a nurse who telephoned the defendant obstetrician Dr. Page at 12:31 a.m. to tell her about the baby’s distress. Dr. Page arrived at the hospital at 12:48 a.m. and a C-section was ordered at 12:56 a.m. The newborn was delivered at 1:20 a.m.

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This was a medical malpractice and wrongful death case of a newborn baby. The issue on appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court was whether the defendants’ (two physicians and hospitals) motion to dismiss predicated on the plaintiff’s (the family of the newborn) failure to timely serve summonses on these defendants was justified.

The parents of the newborn baby alleged that on June 12, 2012 their son died as a result of medical malpractice at the defendant hospital and at the hands of two physicians, who were claimed to have been negligent in their care and treatment or lack of it.

The plaintiffs filed their complaints against both sets of defendants on June 20, 2014. Under the applicable code of civil procedure, the plaintiffs had 60 days to serve the defendants with summonses.  On Aug. 18, 2014, the day before the 60-day period was set to expire, plaintiffs moved for an enlargement of time for service, requesting that the court extend the deadline for service of process “for an additional sixty (60) days.”

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On April 6, 2007,  Dramara Sviels was born at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Ill. During the delivery, Dramara contracted Group B Streptococcus infection, which was claimed not diagnosed before Dramara was discharged from the hospital the next day. As a result of the infection, it progressed to very serious meningitis, which was diagnosed on April 8, 2007. The meningitis left Dramara with cerebral palsy and seizure disorder. According to the report of this case, the lifetime medical and caretaking expenses would amount to more than $20 million.

In the lawsuit filed by Dramara’s family, it was maintained that the child was exhibiting symptoms of sepsis during his stay at Memorial Hospital at the time of his discharge and during an April 7 phone call from Dramara’s  parents to the hospital nursery after discharge. The lawsuit maintained that these symptoms should have been immediately treated.

The experts who testified on behalf of Dramara’s family stated that a chain of command protocol at the hospital should have been initiated to delay the infant’s discharge and that the nurses who handled the April 7 phone call should have referred the baby to a pediatrician or to the emergency room for immediate care.

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