The mother alleges in her Florida birth injury medical malpractice complaint that she was 27-years-old when she went to AdventHealth Ocala on November 17, 2023 with uterine contractions. After an evaluation, she was admitted for labor.
The woman alleges that she was examined before midnight. By 4 a.m., her condition had deteriorated, with nurses documenting fetal heart rate decelerations. However, the nurses did not notify a physician to come to the hospital until 7:54 a.m. According to the lawsuit, a physician did not arrive at the patient’s bedside until 8:25 a.m., at which time the fetal heart tones were around 70 beats per minute. Unsuccessful attempts to deliver the baby by a vacuum-assisted device were followed by an emergency cesarean section delivery at 8:37 a.m.
The baby’s Apgar scores at the time of birth and at 5 minutes after birth were both zero. The baby was subsequently diagnosed with severe diffuse hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy caused by the lack of adequate oxygen to the baby’s brain before delivery.
The mother’s birth injury medical malpractice complaint alleges that the physicians and nurses breached the standard of care by failing to timely respond to signs of fetal distress, by failing to have appropriate backup physician coverage available at the hospital, and by failing to perform the emergency C-section delivery earlier.