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What is a Pregnancy-Related Injury?

A pregnancy-related injury is an injury that a woman sustains during pregnancy, at delivery, or shortly after delivery. These injuries can range from mild to severe with the worst cases resulting in death – known as maternal mortality. 700 women die each year in the United States due to pregnancy-related injuries resulting in maternal mortality.

What is Maternal Mortality?

Maternal Mortality is a term used to explain the deaths of women during their pregnancies and childbirth. Startingly, pregnant women in the United Starts are more likely to be at risk for maternal mortality than in any other developed country.  

Kira Johnson

In 2016, Kira Johnson was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Hospital for the delivery of her second child. She had attended all her prenatal visits and was said to be in great health. She delivered a healthy baby boy via a routine, scheduled Cesarean section and was taken to the recovery room shortly afterward. According to her husband, Charles, this was when the nightmare began.

Charles noticed blood in Kira’s catheter and that she was trembling. She then began to shake uncontrollably, was sensitive to touch, and experienced excruciating pain in her stomach area. Charles brought all these symptoms to both the nurse’s and the doctor’s attention several times and they ordered a CT scan. The scan was meant to be conducted immediately, but still had not been done hours later despite Charles’s continued appeals. Eventually, doctors realized that there was a major problem and forewent the CT scan in favor of taking Kira back to surgery to conduct an internal exam.

Doctors found 3 liters of blood in Kira’s abdominal cavity which caused her heart to stop – Kira died less than 12 hours after giving birth from hemorrhagic shock due to acute hemoperitoneum during her Cesarean surgery.

Following the tragedy, Charles filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against the hospital which is still pending. He is now an advocate for better maternal healthcare and the prevention of maternal mortality.

Legal Matters

More often than not, maternal mortality is due to pregnancy-related injuries which result from medical malpractice. When this is the case, you or your family should be able to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctor and/or hospital responsible. In order to do this, you should consult with a medical malpractice lawyer.

If you seek a pregnancy-related injury or maternal mortality claim, it is generally because you or your family wish to receive financial compensation for the medical costs and/or the emotional damages inflicted upon you and your family.

As with all other states, the state laws of NYC stipulate that your allegation of medical malpractice must be filed within the statute of limitations in order for it to be brought forward. Your NYC medical malpractice lawyer will be able to assist you with this, as well as the proceeding steps that will need to be taken in order to prove that your medical malpractice claim is legitimate.

Contact

If you believe that you a family member may have experienced a pregnancy-related injury or been a victim of maternal mortality, please contact the medical malpractice lawyers of Rosenburg, Minc, Falkoff & Wolff LLP in NYC today and speak to one of our medical malpractice attorneys.

When you are ready to talk, we are ready to listen. Call 212-344-1000 for a free, confidential consultation.

 

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