$3,250,000
Baby Suffers Birth Injury due to Delay in Performing Cesarean Section
The mother, a gestational diabetic, was about to give birth to a large-for-gestational age baby at a local HMO. Despite warning signs of decreasing amniotic fluid over the preceding weeks (impending oligohydramnios), the obstetrician treated her like a low-risk labor. When signs of fetal compromise occurred, there was no expeditious move towards Cesarean section. When compromise led to an ominous pattern on the fetal heart rate tracing, the doctor and nurses finally moved toward emergency Cesarean, but it was too late. The baby was born severely depressed. Although he survived, he was left with severe brain damage (athetoid Cerebral Palsy), developmental delay and spastic quadriplegia.