Failure to Diagnose Gestational Diabetes Hurt My Child

Birth Injury

Diabetes is a serious condition which must be managed on a daily basis. It however doesn’t always happen due to poor lifestyle choices: gestational diabetes is a type of high blood sugar condition which occurs during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, and doctors must be on high alert in order to diagnose and properly treat it before it becomes a problem and causes complications for both the mother and the unborn baby. Prenatal visits and screenings are the perfect avenue or platform to detect and diagnose as well as treat gestational diabetes in a preemptive manner, and should a physician do what is expected of them for the duration of the patient’s pregnancy, they should not have any problems with the pregnancy as well as the health of the mother. In essence, gestational diabetes and the failure to diagnose it is a sign of negligence, which opens up the health professional as well as the hospital to a medical malpractice suit, something you have every right to with regard to filing.

Did your doctor fail to diagnose you with gestational diabetes, which then went on to cause a difficult delivery as well as your child’s health complications? The experienced and aggressive birth injury attorneys at McCready Law have over 90 YEARS of legal experience helping people just like you get the justice and compensation they deserve. Please contact us NOW at (773) 825-3605 to learn more about your legal options for compensation. What’s more is that we work on contingency fee basis, which means that we don’t charge you a cent until we recover compensation on your behalf. Unlike other law firms, we are not afraid to go to trial if the hospital’s insurance company acts in bad faith, and we have access to investigative and other resources in order to get to the bottom of your medical malpractice case. The number to call for your FREE legal advice into birth injury and delivery lawsuits is (773) 825-3605, and we serve individuals across the country, regardless of where you are.

It is estimated that anywhere from 3 to 8 percent of all pregnant women in the US will be diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus, which is a different type of diabetes given the fact that it is not due to a lack of the hormone insulin, the master sugar regulator. Gestational diabetes during pregnancy stems from hormones that course through the mother’s body during pregnancy, leading to lowered efficacy of insulin. The hormones thought to be primarily responsible for this form of diabetes are cortisol and estrogen, which have both been shown to have an insulin-blocking effect.

Gestational Diabetes Child Complications

Gestational diabetes doesn’t only affect the mother; it can cause the child to grow to a size that is larger than normal in a condition known as macrosomia, and the baby itself may deal with hypoglycemia, or periodically low levels of blood sugar for the duration of their life. In addition, a larger than normal baby may have a hard time passing through the birth canal, and may suffer from shoulder dystocia or brachial plexus, leading to the dislocation or even fracture of bones during the birthing process. Lastly, babies born with mothers with undiagnosed gestational diabetes may develop respiratory distress syndrome, and they may also be born too soon, or pre-term before they have fully developed.

Some of the warning signs associated with gestational diabetes include:

Blurry vision
Increased thirst
An increase in urination
Susceptibility to infections