Birth Injury

January 8, 2015

Cook County Jury Sides With Hospital and Doctors in Case of Delayed Delivery Causing Baby’s Cerebral Palsy

The baby, Zoey Stavrou, was delivered by Cesarean section at Edward Hospital in DuPage County, Ill., at 12:25 a.m. on May 14, 2006. She had Apgar scores at 0 at 1, 5 and 10 minutes. At the time of the delivery, a 9-centimeter umbilical cord hematoma was discovered, which had occurred as a result of a ruptured umbilical vein.

Zoey is now 8 years old and has severe cerebral palsy. She is non-verbal and has no functional mobility. She has the cognitive level of a 6-9 month infant and is dependent for all activities of daily living.

Zoey’s family contended that the defendant delivering physician and labor and delivery nurses chose not to properly interpret and act upon non-reassuring fetal monitor strips throughout the evening of May 13. They also contended that the emergency C-section should have been ordered around 9 p.m., but the defendant obstetrician, Dr. Chen, negligently waited until midnight to order the C-section. It was also claimed that Dr. Chen did not perform the incision for the C-section until 12:19 a.m. and the child would have been born neurologically intact if she had been delivered before 12:08 a.m.

November 21, 2014

Cook County Jury Finds in Favor of Doctor in Brachial Plexus Injury Case

by Robert Kreisman

Dr. Sonya L. Thomas was named as a defendant in a birth injury case that was claimed to have been caused by her negligence in the delivery of a baby, Regina Pilero, at St. Anthony Hospital on Jan. 6, 2007. Dr. Thomas is an obstetrician. It was alleged in the lawsuit that was filed on behalf of the minor child that Dr. Thomas chose not to correctly manage shoulder dystocia during Regina’s delivery and used excessive force to extract the baby.

Plaintiffs alleged this caused nerve root avulsion at C-7 with damage to the adjacent nerve trunks at C5-6 to the newborn. A nerve root avulsion injury causes weakness to the nearby muscles and may be severe.

As a result of the brachial plexus injury, Regina required cable grafting and muscle surgery. Regina has permanent weakness and dysfunction in her left arm that represents $272,026 in past medical expenses along with a future life care plan for therapy and expenses that range from $481,647 to $698,217. In addition, it was presented at trial that Regina would have lost income ranging from $315,000 to $627,648 over the course of her expected life.

October 3, 2014

$550,000 Settlement for Death of Infant After Failure to Diagnose Placental Abruption

by Robert Kreisman

During Ms. Doe’s 32nd week of pregnancy, she experienced contractions. Doe went to a nearby hospital where vaginal bleeding, elevated blood pressure and pre-term labor were all noted in her hospital chart. She was under observation for about 36 hours at the hospital before she was discharged to go home.

About 14 hours after discharge, Doe’s water broke. She returned to the hospital where she delivered her daughter by way of an emergency Caesarean section. The child’s Apgar scores were 1 at one minute and 4 at five minutes.

The child was diagnosed as having suffered an asphyxia and spent a number of weeks in the hospital’s intensive care unit. The baby died one year later from pneumonia and complications of severe brain damage suffered at birth.

September 17, 2014

Chicago U.S. District Court Grants Summary Judgment for Part of Birth Injury Case; Leaves Res Ipsa Loquitur Claim for Fact Finder

by Robert Kreisman

Kaleb Avalos-Lanteros was born with what amounted to a fractured skull. The injury caused brain damage and was first recognized while Kaleb was in the neonatal intensive care unit at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Chicago.

The cause of Kaleb’s skull fracture was not acknowledged by anyone but was alleged to have happened when Kaleb was being cared for in the NICU. No one took responsibility, so Kaleb’s parents relied on the claim of res ipsa loquitur in suing lots of defendants, which included the hospital, EPC Healthcare Staffing and another group of companies affiliated with Sodexo Inc.

The lawsuit and its complaint included claims for what the lawyers called “specific negligence” in addition to the claim of res ipsa loquitur, which literally means, in Latin, the thing speaks for itself. In other words, the law allows this theory to be applied for a claim in which the event alleged could not have happened in the absence of negligence. That presumption is rebuttable and can be defeated, but would be a question of fact to be decided by a jury as the finder of facts.

March 31, 2014

$3 Million Settlement in Failure to Implement Adequate Oxygenation to Newborn

by Robert Kreisman

A settlement was reached in a case where a newborn, known as “Doe,” was born with a congenital condition in which part of her internal organs developed outside of her body.Right after her birth, Doe underwent a series of surgeries to place those organs inside her body. After one of the surgeries, Doe began having difficulty breathing. Her treating doctors placed her on a mechanical ventilator and cardiac machine and also gave her medications, all of which were not successful in returning her oxygen saturations to normal.

Doe then suffered cardiopulmonary arrest, which resulted in permanent brain damage. Doe died two years later.

Doe’s family sued the hospital and Doe’s treating physicians claiming that the defendants chose not to provide extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and also failed to timely transfer the child to another hospital. Use of ECMO, a heart and lung machine for babies that circulates blood outside the body, would have permitted Doe’s body to rest and recover, the lawsuit claimed.

March 3, 2014

Cook County Jury Finds No Connection with Baby’s Delivery and Quadriplegia

by Robert Kreisman

Matthew Chimis’s mother went into labor during the early morning of Oct. 26, 1997. She contacted her obstetrician, the defendant, Dr. Scott Pierce, who told her to go to Gottlieb Memorial Hospital; he said he would meet her there. Chimis was admitted to Gottlieb’s labor and delivery unit as a vaginal birth after Cesarean section patient and placed on a fetal heart monitor.

A few hours after Chimis arrived, the hospital staff paged Dr. Pierce twice, once at 3:30 a.m. and another time at 4 a.m. in order to advise him of his patient’s status. At 4:10 a.m., Dr. Pierce spoke to a nurse who reported a lack of progression of labor and that the fetal monitor showed tachycardia, which is a heart rate that is above the normal range for a fetus.

Dr. Pierce spoke with the mother on the phone and they both agreed she would wait for the doctor to come to the hospital to do a C-section since delivery was not imminent given the prolonged labor.

February 3, 2014

$4 Million Jury Verdict in Birth Injury Case Caused by Failure to Timely Perform Caesarean Section; McCarthy v. Karounos

by Robert Kreisman

The delivery of Erin McCarthy’s daughter was stalled for about 8 hours during labor. The obstetrician taking care of McCarthy was Dr. Garry Karounos, who attempted a forceps delivery.

During the forceps delivery attempt, the baby’s shoulder got stuck on the mom’s pelvic bone. Dr. Karounos applied various maneuvers to try to deliver the baby. However, the child was deprived of oxygen for 3 ½ minutes during the aborted delivery attempts and suffered hypoxia, deprivation of oxygen. The baby’s Apgar scores were zero at one and five minutes, which are signals of real trouble for the baby.

The child is now 4 years old and has mild cerebral palsy. The baby also struggles with balance issues and speech delay.

January 28, 2014

$1 Million Settlement After Excessive Traction Causes Shoulder Dystocia Injury at Birth

by Robert Kreisman

In this confidential settlement reached by the family of a newborn and obstetrician, the mother was to deliver her baby at 37 weeks gestation. The mom was admitted to the hospital to deliver the baby. During the second stage of labor, she experienced exhaustion while pushing. The treating obstetrician used a vacuum extractor in an effort to deliver the baby.

However, the child suffered severe shoulder dystocia. The obstetrician applied downward traction to deliver the baby, who was born with a left brachial plexus injury. The brachial plexus is a network of nerves that responds from the spine to the shoulder, arm and hand. A brachial plexus injury takes place when those same nerves are stretched or in some cases torn. This can also happen when in childbirth the baby’s shoulder is pressed down forcefully while the head is pushed up and away from the shoulder.

The baby in this case is now 3 years old and can barely move her left arm even though she’s had surgery.

December 3, 2013

$3.9 Million Settlement Reached in Late Caesarean Section Causing Serious Birth Injuries

by Robert Kreisman

Throughout the pregnancy of Ms. Doe, she received prenatal care at a hospital’s clinic. She underwent ultrasound tests that showed that she had two gestational ages for her baby, each a week apart. During the third trimester, Ms. Doe was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and her treating physicians told her that she would be induced to deliver the child at 39-40 weeks.

At 40-41 weeks, her membranes ruptured and she was admitted to the hospital. Fetal heart tones were nonreassuring over the course of three hours. The nurses gave Ms. Doe fluids and oxygen and repositioned her.

Forty hours after she was first admitted to the hospital, she underwent an emergency Caesarean section. The baby was born in a depressed condition and required resuscitation, with Apgar scores of one at one minute and nine at five minutes.

October 24, 2013

Cook County Jury Sides with Doctors and Hospital in Infant’s Fatal Aspiration of Formula Case

by Robert Kreisman

Caden Glynn was born at 26 weeks, 5 days of gestation at Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora, Ill. His early birth was attributed to his mother’s preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome. The HELLP syndrome is an acronym for hemolysis, the breaking down of red blood cells, EL for elevated liver enzymes and LP for low platelet count.

HELLP syndrome is a life-threatening pregnancy complication that is often a variant of preeclampsia.

Caden’s birth weight was only about 1 lb. 12 oz. After birth he was on a ventilator and feeding was started by a nasogastric tube. At 44 days, Caden was found to be suffering from necrotizing enterocolitis and was ordered by a treating neurologist to receive nothing by mouth.