subject: $3.875 Million Settlement For Baby's Brain Injury After Pediatrician Did Not Consider That Child Had [print this page] A mother who is a carrier of the Group b strep might transfer the bacteria to her baby during labor whether or not the mother is asymptomatic. Studies have shown that from approximately 25% of expecting mothers are carriers of group b strep. Without treatment, a child born to a woman who with GBS has a 1 in 200 possibility of developing a Group B Strep infection. By giving the mother appropriate antibiotics during labor the likelihood that she will pass the bacteria to her infant is lowered by 2,000%.
In order to identify which pregnant women should be administered antibiotics while in labor, expecting mothers without any symptoms are screened for group b streptococcus approximately from the 35th and 37th week of the pregnancy. Undergoing testing for Group B Strep is a simple process. Since the bacteria generally colonizes inside the urinary and vaginal tract of the pregnant woman, a swab is used to obtain a sample. The results of the screen are typically available inside 48 hours.
When a newborn develops a group b strep infection and is not treated right away, the infection might turn into pneumonia, sepsis or meningitis. Given that a baby's immune systems is not totally developed, the baby might be left with permanent physical and neurological injuries that may prevent the child from ever living a normal life. And of the approximately seventy-six hundred children each year who become infected with group b streptococcus ten to fifteen percent do not survive.
Given the serious danger a group b strep infection poses for infants, doctors treating a baby who has signs consistent with a GBS infection and whose mother tested positive during the pregnancy ought to incorporate it in their differential diagnosis. Examine, for example, a reported lawsuit in which a baby, born to a woman whose GBS screening test had come back positive earlier in the pregnancy during the pregnancy, began to display signs consistent with a Group B Strep infection shortly after birth. But, the pediatrician did not match the symptoms in the babys postnatal record with the prenatal record which showed that the Group B Strep bacteria had been detected in the mother during the pregnancy. As a result, the proper diagnosis was came late and antibiotics were not given immediately.
Due to the time that passed before antibiotics were administered, the infant suffered a brain injury. The law firm that helped the family reported that the case settled for $3,875,000
Babies can acquire a Group B Strep infection even if antibiotics were administered to the mother during labor. Research conducted recently also revealed that there are a number of babies who manifest the infection although the mother tested negative. Doctors thus ought to consider it as part of their differential diagnosis whenever a baby shows symptoms consistent with GBS . As this matter illustrates The failure to check the prenatal chart and to consider Group B Strep might constitute liability for medical malpractice.
by: Joseph Hernandez
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