My 2 month old son was diagnosed with shoulder dyscotia at birth. After 2 months with no improvement he has been fully diagnosed with Erb's palsy by a specialist in Columbia, MO. Now that I'm able to put a name to my son's condition, I'm left wondering if all of this could have been prevented. The delivery doctor failed to take any ultrasound measurements after week 35 of my fiance's pregnancy, and employed the use of a vacuum during delivery while my son's shoulder was still lodged. My fiance had a very long, hard delivery of our first son who was 8 lbs. 1 oz., and the doctor was fully aware of this. My son that got injured and diagnosed with erb's palsy weighed 10 lbs. 10 oz. at birth. Should I seek out legal counsel to determine if this is a malpractice issue while my son is still so young? What if I file suit and my son makes a great recovery? The specialist we've been to has already said that my son will most likely not recover too 100%, and that he may need surgery to repair nerves or remove scar tissue, and we're already taking him to regular physical therapy sessions. If I do file suit will it affect the quality of care my son will receive since we live in a small town with few doctors? Also, my fiance is a LPN at the hospital where our boy was delivered. How will this affect her career? I have so many questions that I feel the need to seek professional legal advice to help restore some kind of order to my families life again. Any advice to help ease my mind would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks,
Pat
Malpractice?
Re: Malpractice?
In NJ you have till the child is 18 to file a law suit not sure about where your at but I would go to another town and seek legal advise you don't have to file but get the info you need and make sure the lawyer has done bpi cases they are hard to win no matter how strong of a case you have and it takes yrs ours took 9yrs. It never affected the care my son got and he had many surgiers and yrs of OT and PT if anything the law suit made them (HMO)faster to approve out of network treatment because they knew of the suit and didn't want to look bad by denying treatment. The most important thing is getting the right treatment asap and to start therapy right away with these injuries time is what determines the outcome have you found a BPI doc yet? Mare
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Ken. Levine
- Posts: 83
- Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:12 pm
Re: Malpractice?
Patdad,
I will try to answer your questions. The difficult first delivery at 8 pounds should have been a warning sign. The ob/gyn should have been very careful with the pre-natal care for the second child to have an estimated fetal weight. If the estimated fetal weight was greater than 8 pounds, there should have been some discussion with you about cesearian section, or at least a trial of labor and cesearian section if labor did not progress. In fact, this assessment of fetal weight should have been done all along the pregnancy through a serial of ultrasounds. I have seem many cases where ultrasound was done and misread, underestimating the fetal weight. Possible that happened in your case.
The use of the vacuum is troubling. Vacuum extraction should not be used if there is a suspected shoulder dystocia. The vacuum does not help with delivery and only makes the brachial plexus injury worse. The vacuum is often used by ob/gyn's that panic when the baby does not progress. The vacuum is often improperly applied at too high a station and simply makes the shoulder dsytocia more impacted and the brachial plexus injury worse.
In those instances if the fetal heart monitor strip is fine the ob/gyn should leave the baby alone and offer a cesearian section do to the failure to progress which is most likely caused by the size of the baby.
Filing suit should not affect the care you receive. You should have the baby seen by one of the brachial plexus specialists and none of them are in Missouri. Filing suit should have no affect on your pediatrician.
Concerning your fiance working for the hospital, once a suit is filed it is in the hands of the insurance company. The hospital administration is not as involved in the litigation as you would expect. It is a violation of law for the hospital to punish you fiance in any way because of the case. There are also ways to file the case so that you fiance's name doe not appear on the complaint if your are still concerned.
If you have any other questions, please post a note of contact me directly.
Ken Levine
617-566-2700
Klevine@Klevinelaw.com
www.Klevinelaw.com
I will try to answer your questions. The difficult first delivery at 8 pounds should have been a warning sign. The ob/gyn should have been very careful with the pre-natal care for the second child to have an estimated fetal weight. If the estimated fetal weight was greater than 8 pounds, there should have been some discussion with you about cesearian section, or at least a trial of labor and cesearian section if labor did not progress. In fact, this assessment of fetal weight should have been done all along the pregnancy through a serial of ultrasounds. I have seem many cases where ultrasound was done and misread, underestimating the fetal weight. Possible that happened in your case.
The use of the vacuum is troubling. Vacuum extraction should not be used if there is a suspected shoulder dystocia. The vacuum does not help with delivery and only makes the brachial plexus injury worse. The vacuum is often used by ob/gyn's that panic when the baby does not progress. The vacuum is often improperly applied at too high a station and simply makes the shoulder dsytocia more impacted and the brachial plexus injury worse.
In those instances if the fetal heart monitor strip is fine the ob/gyn should leave the baby alone and offer a cesearian section do to the failure to progress which is most likely caused by the size of the baby.
Filing suit should not affect the care you receive. You should have the baby seen by one of the brachial plexus specialists and none of them are in Missouri. Filing suit should have no affect on your pediatrician.
Concerning your fiance working for the hospital, once a suit is filed it is in the hands of the insurance company. The hospital administration is not as involved in the litigation as you would expect. It is a violation of law for the hospital to punish you fiance in any way because of the case. There are also ways to file the case so that you fiance's name doe not appear on the complaint if your are still concerned.
If you have any other questions, please post a note of contact me directly.
Ken Levine
617-566-2700
Klevine@Klevinelaw.com
www.Klevinelaw.com
Re: Malpractice?
Patdad:
You can, of course, wait a little while longer, to see if there is recovery, before filing suit. However, no matter how you slice it, it comes up malpractice.
As for the specialists...we have a medical resource page on this website and I encourage you to use it. Our docs are very "user friendly" and will respond to emails quickly. You should get 2-3 opinions as brachial plexus treatment varies as widely as the injuries themselves. And the injuries are absolutely, individual. What recovery your child gets can be vastly different from what another child gets. However, there are certain scientific principles at play here, and the docs can explain them to you.
I know that everything is very overwhelming right now. I was there 9 1/2 years ago. Just keep educating yourself, asking questions, and most importantly, playing with your son. As my daughter has taught me time and time again...they will get the job done. So enjoy your son. And just so you know that they grow up and have happy lives...my daughter, who is only 9 1/2 years old, is smart, funny, athletic, friendly and very goofy. She is in tennis camp now and will move on to lacrosse camp in a few weeks. She is just a kid. Though in my eyes, a pretty special kid (don't let her 3 older siblings know that I said that!).
good luck,
claudia
You can, of course, wait a little while longer, to see if there is recovery, before filing suit. However, no matter how you slice it, it comes up malpractice.
As for the specialists...we have a medical resource page on this website and I encourage you to use it. Our docs are very "user friendly" and will respond to emails quickly. You should get 2-3 opinions as brachial plexus treatment varies as widely as the injuries themselves. And the injuries are absolutely, individual. What recovery your child gets can be vastly different from what another child gets. However, there are certain scientific principles at play here, and the docs can explain them to you.
I know that everything is very overwhelming right now. I was there 9 1/2 years ago. Just keep educating yourself, asking questions, and most importantly, playing with your son. As my daughter has taught me time and time again...they will get the job done. So enjoy your son. And just so you know that they grow up and have happy lives...my daughter, who is only 9 1/2 years old, is smart, funny, athletic, friendly and very goofy. She is in tennis camp now and will move on to lacrosse camp in a few weeks. She is just a kid. Though in my eyes, a pretty special kid (don't let her 3 older siblings know that I said that!).
good luck,
claudia
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dtrusk
- Posts: 32
- Joined: Tue Nov 25, 2008 2:21 pm
- Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: My son, Tyler (15) has ROBPI. The nerves were stretched that affected C5,C6,& C7. He has full use of all fingers, but limited ROM. In 2009, he underwent Triangle Tilt surgery and repair for shoulder dislocation.
- Location: Missouri
Re: Malpractice?
Hi Pat....welcome to the message boards! This site is proabably one of the most valuable tools you can have access to as far as information & support regarding brachial plexus injuries. We have a 14 year old son born with Erbs Palsy and also live in MO. As someone else mentioned, each child varies in the degree of the injury and how it is treated. Be aggressive in seeking advice and get several opinions from Brachial Plexus specialists....there is a small window for nerve surgery if that is an option (I believe it's 18 months). There will be expenses down the road for physical therapy, ongoing medical checkups, x-rays, possible C-Scans, future surgeries, etc.....in the past 14 years, they have done some amazing things to help these kids and I am sure they will keep improving the treatment in years to come. You will need to think about your son's future as he gets older and as he becomes an adult such as ongoing medical treatment & therapy. I'm assuming the insurance companies treat this as a pre-existing condition after the kids are grown and have to get their own insurance? Please feel free to email me directly and I'll be glad to talk with you! There is so much information to be learned, but the more knowledge you have going into this, the better off you will be! My email is dtrusk@fairpoint.net
Donna Trusk
Donna Trusk