The Potential Impacts Of Maternity Negligence
Having quality care during your pregnancy is essential to a safe and stress-free experience. Discover the potential impacts of maternity negligence and how these situations can and should be avoided.
Traumatic birth experience
Labour is often a long and strenuous process, lasting between 8 and 18 hours for first-time mothers on average from the start of established labour to delivery. This can be slowed further by a number of factors including:
- Delayed/weak contractions
- Insufficient cervix dilation
- Small birth canal
- Awkward baby position
While slow labour is sometimes unavoidable, it can be caused by a healthcare professional’s failure to identify potential problems. In these cases, delivery can become difficult and dangerous for the mother and baby.
For example, women with a small birth canal or posterior cervix should be booked in for a Caesarean section as there is a risk of the baby becoming stuck during vaginal delivery. Failure to take this action could lead to an emergency surgical procedure during birth and/or avoidable injury to the baby including head compression which can cause cerebral palsy.
A traumatic birth experience can cause long-term or permanent mental and physical health issues for mother and baby. In cases where it could have been prevented, there is the option to hire maternity negligence lawyers and potentially claim compensation which can help towards related costs.
Undiagnosed conditions
Several conditions can occur during pregnancy and, when undiagnosed, can lead to complications for the mother and baby. Most are treatable in the early stages, so any resulting complications of these conditions are usually a direct result of negligent maternity care.
Common conditions developed during pregnancy are:
- Gestational diabetes
- High blood pressure
- Infectious diseases
While for the mother these conditions tend to be manageable – so much so that they can be easy to miss – for the baby they can cause serious issues. Something as simple as food poisoning could cause meningitis and pneumonia in a foetus.
Fatal complications
At the beginning of their pregnancy, women should be questioned in detail about their health and habits and given a full medical assessment to check for anything that could cause the baby harm. Further assessments should be carried out during the pregnancy, checking for things like amniotic fluid levels, bleeding and ectopic pregnancy.
Tragically, failure to conduct these checks can lead to missed complications that can cause the mother to miscarry. Untreated infections in the mother, from bacterial vaginosis to malaria, increase the risk of miscarriage in the second trimester. A weakened cervix can also cause late miscarriages without the proper pre-birth preparation.
Negligent maternity care can also be fatal for the mother. A failure to diagnose a pre-existing heart condition could lead to the mother having a heart attack or stroke during delivery. Complications during avoidable emergencies such as heavy bleeding or an amniotic fluid embolism cause the most deaths in mothers during birth.
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