How Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring Failures Cause Injury

A healthy, full-term, or near-full-term baby should have a fetal heart rate between 110 and 160 beats per minute. While this may fluctuate a bit between contractions and throughout the labor and delivery process, a significant increase (tachycardia), or decrease (bradycardia) is a sign of fetal distress. Proper fetal monitoring during labor and delivery should alert the care staff and attending physician to a change in medical status that could indicate a medical emergency. Failure to respond appropriately with a prompt response and emergency medical intervention can result in permanent birth injury to the child.

What Causes Failures in Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring?

Electronic fetal monitoring occurs throughout the labor and delivery process, typically through a Doppler device on a belt strapped to the laboring mother’s abdomen. This doppler produces a steady stream of heart rate data both at the laboring mother’s bedside and in the nursing station. If the belt method doesn’t give a reliable reading and the laboring mother’s fluid sac has already ruptured, the physician may monitor fetal heart rate through a sensor inserted up the birth canal and attached to the infant’s scalp.

Common causes of failures in fetal heart rate monitoring include the following:

• Mistaking the mother’s heart rate for the fetal heart rate
• Failing to use internal fetal monitoring when not getting an accurate external monitoring result
• Misreading or misinterpreting fetal heart data
• Failure of nursing staff to promptly alert the physician to a change in fetal heart rate
• Failure of the attending physician or other medical provider to react with appropriate interventions in a timely manner
• Failing to reduce or stop Pitocin in response to too frequent contractions adversely affects fetal heart rate

Most dangerous changes in fetal heart rate indicate a medical emergency, such as a compressed cord or other cause of disrupted fetal oxygen flow. Failing to appropriately and accurately monitor fetal heart rate, or failing to respond with appropriate emergency measures, such as ordering an emergency C-section, can cause a birth injury, including serious or catastrophic brain injury from hypoxia, or lack of oxygen to the infant’s brain.

Proving Medical Malpractice for Failure to Accurately or Appropriately Monitor Fetal Heart Rate

Fetal heart rate monitoring failures are the most common cause of hypoxia-related brain injury, including brain injuries that cause cerebral palsy, Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE), and stillbirth or neonatal death. Proving medical malpractice requires evidence demonstrating the following:

• A doctor/patient relationship existed at the time the birth injury occurred
• The doctor or other care-team member had a legal duty to treat their patient at the level of care accepted as the appropriate standard by the medical community
• They violated this duty of care through negligence
• The breach of duty directly caused the injury
• The injury victim and/or their family suffered damages from the injury

Damages from a birth injury are often long-term, impacting all aspects of the injury victim’s and their family’s life.

Preserving Evidence In a Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring Failure Case

If you suspect that negligence in fetal heart rate monitoring occurred during your childbirth and caused your child’s birth injury, you have the right to compensation and a sense of justice for the egregious damages caused to your child and family. Birth injury is a category of medical malpractice requiring an experienced Chicago medical malpractice attorney to navigate your claim with meticulous attention to detail, substantial evidence of the negligence and liability, and a careful calculation of damages to achieve the result your family deserves.