As all mothers know, giving birth is an extremely exciting and memorable event. Your new child is now arriving after nine months of anticipation and careful planning. Yet occasionally, despite good intentions, things can go wrong, with catastrophic results to the health of the mother and her baby. This is why doctors and nurses constantly monitor the mother and child’s vital signs, ready to intervene at a moment’s notice if need be. What can happen if a medical team is too slow in realizing the need for an urgent c-section?
The consequences of delay
C-sections are not uncommon and can be life-saving for an expectant mother who arrives at the hospital with the intention of having a vaginal birth, only to undergo a c-section delivery if things become complicated and threaten the health and welfare of her or her baby.
There are many reasons why you might end up needing a c-section. For example, your baby might be in an abnormal position, or there may be some sort of obstruction that would make a vaginal birth extremely dangerous. An attentive medical team will most often recognize the need for a c-section right away and notify you before harm is done to the baby.
If the medical team is negligent or inattentive, and doesn’t realize that a c-section is the safest option for your baby, there can be serious consequences. The baby might suffer from a lack of oxygen, which could tragically lead to brain damage, seizures and death.
When is it negligence?
The standard that a court will use to determine whether there was negligence on the part of the delivery team is whether they failed to act in the same way that the average competent doctor or nurse or midwife would act in their place.
In a lawsuit for medical negligence, your attorney must prove that a c-section in your particular situation was the only reasonable alternative for delivering your baby and that failure to do so was negligent and led to severe harm to you or your newborn.
There is nothing that can adequately compensate a mother for harm to her child. But with a successful lawsuit, you might be able to receive a measure of restitution for the harm done.