This blog has discussed how important it is for doctors to pay careful attention during labor and delivery and to take every reasonable step they can to ensure the health and well-being of both the mother and the child.
However, doctors and other professionals who are treating mothers and their unborn children during the pregnancy also must pay careful attention as mothers approach their big day. Should signs of an emergency situation arise during prenatal care, they must respond quickly.
For example, while bleeding in early pregnancy can in many cases be non-worrisome, after the first trimester, bleeding from the vagina merits a physician’s full attention, as it can be and often is a sign of one of several very serious or even life-threatening medical conditions. These sorts of conditions can threaten both the life of the unborn baby and the mother, so one ignores bleeding at one’s own peril.
It can be surprisingly easy for a busy doctor to downplay or even ignore reports of bleeding or other symptoms that could foretell a major problem. This of course assumes that these reports get communicate up through the proper channels in the first place, as sometimes a doctor may not even be aware of a problem because of some administrative mis-management.
For whatever the reason, if a doctor misses a problem in late-term pregnancy or does not properly respond to the issue, then the results can be just as disastrous as a labor and delivery error. Both the mother and the baby can die due to such an oversight or could wind up with injuries that are permanently debilitating. A patient may in these sorts of situations wish to consider pursuing a medical malpractice claim against the doctor responsible for the bad outcome.