Lawsuit Alleged Baby Sustained Brain Damage As a result of Pediatrician's Delay In Diagnosing GBS Infection

A mother who is a carrier of the group b strep may transmit the bacteria to her child during labor even if the mother does not present any symptoms. Studies demonstrate that between 15% to 40% of pregnant women are colonized with group b streptococcus. Without intervention, a child born to a woman who is a carrier of the bacteria has a one in two-hundred chance of developing a Group B Strep infection. By giving the mother the right antibiotics as she starts labor the likelihood of the mother transmitting the group b strep bacteria to her child is decreased by 2,000%.

To be able to identify which women should be administered antibiotics in the course of labor, expecting mothers without any symptoms are screened for group b streptococcus approximately from the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh week of the pregnancy. Undergoing testing for GBS is a simple process. Since the bacteria ordinarily takes hold inside the urinary and vaginal tract of the pregnant woman, a swab is used to acquire a sample. The outcome of the screen are ordinarily obtainable within 48 hours.

When an infant develops a GBS infection and is not treated immediately, the infection can turn into pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. Due to the fact an infant's immune systems is not fully developed, the infant might be left with permanent physical and neurological damage that may prevent the child from ever living a normal life. And of the roughly seventy-six hundred infants each year who become infected with gorup b strep there is a mortality rate of 10-15%.

Given the considerable danger a group b strep infection poses for babies, physicians treating an infant who has signs consistent with a GBS infection and whose mother tested positive during the pregnancy ought to include it in their differential diagnosis. Examine, for instance, a sent to case in which an infant, born to a woman who had tested positive for the bacteria during the pregnancy, started to show indications consistent with a Group B Strep infection shortly after birth. However, the pediatrician failed to correlate the symptoms in the child's postnatal chart with the prenatal chart which recorded that mother had tested positive for the bacteria during the pregnancy. Hence, the proper diagnosis was was untimely and antibiotics were not given in a timely manner.

Given the time that passed before antibiotics were administered, the baby suffered brain damage. The law firm that helped the family reported that they were able to reach a settlement on behalf of the family for $750,000 with the doctor and $3,125,000 with the hospital.

Newbo
s can acquire a GBS infection even tough antibiotics were administered to the mother during labor. A recent study also showed that there are a number of newbo
s who manifest the infection regardless of whether the mother tested negative. Doctors thus ought to consider it as part of their differential diagnosis whenever a baby shows symptoms consistent with group b streptococcus . As this lawsuit illustrates The failure to check the prenatal chart and to consider Group B Strep might result in liability for medical malpractice.