My Daughter was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome and Not diagnosed at Pregnancy, Do I have a Lawsuit?
admin | Feb 07, 2013 | 3 comments
My daughter was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, being diagnosed 1 day after birth. Unfortunately, she died a few days later. We were not informed of any problems via ultrasound. Thus, there was NO PRENATAL diagnosis. Also, during the delivery, her collar bone was broken somehow. Do we have a case to sue for medical malpractice (failure to diagnose)? Are there any other potential injury lawsuits from the facts given? Serious answers only. Thanks.
Filed Under: Health and Ill
It may be that the ultrasound didn’t indicate that anything was wrong.
You only have a malpractice case if the injury was the cause of serious negligence of incompetence. Simply failing to save everyone isn’t enough for a malpractice lawsuit. Medicine isn’t perfect and isn’t legally expected to be.
Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about your case to offer any advice beyond that. But the simple fact that a disease wasn’t diagnosed is not necessarily grounds for a lawsuit in and of itself.
Your best advice would be to consult a lawyer.
Depends on when the ultrasound was done and whether or not it should have been able to be picked up. No all conditions are evident during a ultrasound and depending on the position of the fetus it can be hard to see during a ultrasound.
Also you may well be asked if you took any kind of medications/drugs or did anything at all that could have caused the problem. You may well be also asked if any genetic problems as well.
Really you need to get legal advise and medical advise.
No it does not sound like you have a case. Only about 50% of Hypoplasitc cases actually are caught prenatally. It is a sad and terrible thing, but not the fault of health care professionals. Depending on the position of the baby, it can be very hard to catch. And even if they had known ahead of time, there is still absolutely nothing that can be done until the baby is born. 1 to 3 days after birth they would have given your daughter a heart cath to determine whether or not she was eligible for the Norwood surgery or needed a heart transplant. 20 years ago, every baby born with this dies, today 75% of them survive. I am very blessed that my nephew survived HLHS and although his was caught when my sister was 22 weeks pregant, there was absolutely nothing to do until the baby was born.
I am not certain about the collar bone but maybe just ask them, surely they will answer you. Malpractice is a difficult thing to prove. If you truly think you have a case there, go talk to a Medical Malpractice Attorney, but make sure you are doing it for the right reasons. I am very sorry for your loss. Also take comfort in knowing that it was nothing you did. They have no known cause for HLHS which is frustrating to say the least. Best they can say is that it is “environmental,” whatever that means.