The woman was told she should have a “c” section, was told she had a narrow pelvic arch, but went ahead with natural child birth. She chose to have natural birth and she chose the outcome. Now she can’t live with the guilt unless she blames someone else and makes them pay for her mistake.

The story leaves out that the doctors were telling her all along to have a c section. But, they couldn’t force her. She finally agreed after 13 hours, and it’s their fault? If I was the doctor, I would have refused to deliver her baby.

The doctors organization Group Health Associates says Dr. Lisa Yang “did everything medically possible to facilitate a healthy delivery.”- sounds like she didn’t do “everything” that SHOULD have been done! THIRTEEN HOURS in the birth canal?! Are you kidding me? Common sense says get the baby out in an hour of not coming through the canal? Some doctors…you just never know!

yet another reason HealthCare is so high…faulty lawsuits!!!

Great – this will result in another avalanche of already epidemic cesarean rates. I have seen 12-pound babies delivered by tiny moms with no problems. And most women who are told they have a small pelvis have an incompetent doctor – it is only when a woman is lying down in bed, strapped to machines and unable to move that the pelvis is too cramped for a normal birth. Suits like this will not help change the current obstetrical practices for the better, only make it all that much worse.

I have a special-needs child and there is help available to take care of her, I didn’t have to sue a doctor to make sure she has the care she needs. People need to look at the bigger picture and quit expecting perfect outcomes – it will involve a cultural change on a fundamental level (and will be helped tremendously when doctors quit acting like they are G-d and encouraging their patients to go along with that view).

This is an unfortunate incident, and I feel bad for the daughter who has to go through life like this. however this situation is just more cause for doctors to simply perform C sections and natural birth to become the lesser alternative, to avoid such pricy rulings in the future. What we need a a cap on damages and a law that requires the loser of a suit to pay the legal expenses of the plaintiff. It’s not the doctors paying this, but their insurance, via fees passed on to all patients. All patients are not responsible for this woman’s faulty anatomy, nor the series of bad decisions by the doctors. A more reasonable fine ($5,000-$10,000) payable directly by the doctor from his own bank account or a temporary suspension of his license may have been in order. No amount of money can make the girl better. Such large “REWARDS” for accidents and lapses in judgment make the rest of us have to suffer due to the high cost of medical insurance and medical care.

It really blows my mind how doctors let a women go that far knowing that she has a narrowed birth canal. Im happy for that women that received that 20 mil. and i hope everyone knows how those doctors scrued up that delivery so badly that it affected this child so badly. My prayers are with this family!

I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW EXACTLY SHE DID THIS!! I HAVE A CHILD THAT HAD A STROKE AT BIRTH B/C THE STUPID NURSE WOULD NOT CALL THE DOCTOR AND KEPT TRYING TO REACH IN AND TURN MY BABIES HEAD TO MAKE HER CROWN! AFTER MY DOCTOR GOT THERE HE SAID THAT I COULD NOT HAVE HER B/C IT WOULD BREAK HER SHOULDERS B/C SHE WAS SO BIG………MY DAUGHTER NOW IS ABOUT TO BE 9 YEARS OLD AND IS HANDICAPPED AND GOES TO A SPECIAL NEEDS SCHOOL…

The same thing happened to me. My son was 9 pounds, I am small 5 ft. tall. The Doctors of Kaiser Permanente kept telling me I could have this baby no problem, because I had one other vaginal delivery, but also had difficulty with that one. I told them repeatedtly that I was afraid because I always have large babies. I had one C section. They were adamant that I could have a V_BACK is what they call it, even though I was small and also 41 years old.

My son got stuck with his head out and his shoulders would not deliver. He quit breathing and was blue when he was finally delivered.

HIs one minute APGAR score was 2 out of 9 , he was barely alive. In order to get him out , the nurses were literally sitting on my stomach and pulling my legs up over my ears, it was too late for a C-section. It is all about money. C-sections cost more, so they try not to perform them.

My son is now almost 11 and is healthy, but does have some learning disabilities and motor skills issues.

Great, now because some lady has a small pelvis and likely a brain to match, we can look forward to health care costs continuing to rise. I fail to see how this should be called a fault of the doctor. Maybe she should have sued the prenatal vitamin company for helping to grow a nice big baby. Or, her parents for giving her the small pelvis. We must blame someone. Even if there was an error on the doctor’s behalf, 20 million, please!

I just read the comments on this suit. For starters, this amount will be appealed and the woman may never even see any of it.
Secondly, women are duped into believing that if they do not have a child “naturally” (vaginally) then they are less of a woman. If this was her first, i could see how she may have wanted to try a vaginal, although, I thought the general guideline was no more than an hour , 2 at the most in the birth canal!
And last of all, some Doctors may be mandated by their HMO, I know Kaiser is, to discourage c sections and long hospital stays. I worked at a hospital here in ATlanta and I overheard a Dr. telling a nurse that the Mother HAD to go home that day, the nurse was telling the Dr. that the baby had to stay because she was not gaining weight and they wanted Mom to stay to keep breastfeeding her at least another day. The Dr. was yelling at her and SAID , NO> He was a Kaiser Permanente Dr. (I am sure that will be edited out).

The same thing happened to my son but he was not in there for thirteen hours.

Got to love it….

This woman ignored the advice of her doctors and went with natural delivery, then wants to blame everyone but herself. You know what? Child bearing is not without risk….there is never a guarantee of a perfect baby. Women have been giving birth since the dawn of man and for 99.9% of that time, there was no doctor to sue….or stupid juries for that matter. Was John Edwards (the ambulance chaser) her attorney?

There is already a shortage of doctors in this country, especially in OB/GYN…and for good reason. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Got to love it….

This woman ignored the advice of her doctors and went with natural delivery, then wants to blame everyone but herself. You know what? Child bearing is not without risk….there is never a guarantee of a perfect baby. Women have been giving birth since the dawn of man and for 99.9% of that time, there was no doctor to sue….or stupid juries for that matter. Was John Edwards (the ambulance chaser) her attorney?

There is already a shortage of doctors in this country, especially in OB/GYN…and for good reason.

As a former Labor and Delivery nurse, Im trying desperately to figure out what your talking about. “stuck in the birth canal for 13 hours”? “Tried to push it through?” who edits these things??????????? For God sake, at least have a nurse or doctor translate for you. The visual this creates for people is just bizarre. Its impossible to know what really happened and who, if anyone, was at fault without reading the patient’s chart and talking to the parties involved. Another piece of half-witted, half-baked Fox “journalism.”

If the doctor had broken a $20 million vase, or ruined a Van Gogh painting worth that much, no one would blink an eye about making him pay for what he broke. But because it is a child, who will need special care for the rest of her ruined life, the doctor is not supposed to pay for his mistake? Somehow this poor child has been “rewarded?” Do you think the doctor’s lawyers did not point out all of the defenses to the case to the jury? We trust juries to sentence criminals to death, I think we can trust them with our money, or is money more important than human life?

This is the first I have heard of this story but if she was advised of the risk and decided to try natural childbirth the doctor should not be held responsible. I pushed with my daughter for 30 min and she was stuck. There was no hesitation in my mind to have a c-sect.

I HOPE this lady did not think she would be any less of a woman or mother for not have a “natural delivery”, as some women do, because I do not feel any less of a woman or mother for having a c-section.

Having said that, my heart does go out to her for the experience and the issues her daughter is now facing.

my daughter was 4 pounds at birth. they induced me because she was so small. about 8 hours into the induction i notice strange pressure in my hips and i paged the nurse over and over and over and they kept telling me i was fine. after an hour, the nurse finally checked me and saw my daughter was crowning. the cord was around her neck. she sat in my birth canal for an hour strangling, before they finally realized that things were not so good. she was not breathing when she was born, and she was gray, and she was a 2 on the AGPAR scale. she is a miracle baby simply cause she survived with no brain damage. so while you are critisizing this women for suing, take into consideration that you can only ASSUME that the doctors told her anything. you dont know and for all you know her doctor happened to be an idiot. i only say this becuase the OB team that delivered my baby girl almost killed her, simply becuase they didn’t feel like getting off their butts to check on things when i grew concerned.

Another huge payout….another huge paycheck for the attorneys. One day these attonrneys will need medical attention. I wouldn’t blame the doctors for refusing to treat them. They are sucking the life out of the medical community.

So does the $20 Mil give the child full use of her limbs or full brain function?

If things continue as they are, there simply won’t be any ob/gyn’s in the country soon. They have the WORST hours, poor pay, and the WORST malpractice (compared to other docs). Fewer medical students are going into ob/gyn residencies and practice because of events like this. Coming from a DO school (one that specalizes in primary care of which ob/gyn’s are considered), I can tell you that out of our class of 72 people, only 1 is really considering becoming an ob/gyn.

Yeah…I see it now..there is a critical situation where both the mother and baby’s life is at risk and the MDs are just twittling their thumbs. The majority of the reason people go into medicene is because the want to help people not to cause more harm. Medicence is not an exact science so until you are qualified to stand in there shoes don’t prentend to understand their decisions.

here goes the price of health care even higher. One gets rich and the rest of us pay thru the nose because of it.

There are so many details left out of this story there is NO way to make a call on what SHOULD have happened.
First of all, the wording is misleading because they baby doesn’t enter the “birth canal” until it’s time to push and there is NO way she was pusing for 13 hours. If they meant the c-section wasn’t done until 13 hours into the labor that’s a totally different situation and doesn’t mean anything at all.
Secondly, for all we know she HAD been asking for a c-section at some point in the labor and was urged to try vaginally.
Thirdly, it doesn’t mention if forceps were used which themselves could have caused the injuries.

C-sections for suspected big baby are NOT approved by ACOG (American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology) because you cannot accurately estimate fetal weight and because c-sections are riskier to mother AND baby. C-sections are lifesaving when used appropriately but having a c-section because someone thinks the baby will be big do not fall into that category.

Quite simply, a mother will rarely grow a baby too big to deliver vaginally. If it were common then God/mother nature really screwed up and that’s not likely. Plenty of small women deliver babies up to 12 pounds quite easily. I delivered between a 9-10 pounder after a 3 hour labor and pushing time of 5 minutes. I’m 5′4″ and about 130 normally. We’re not certain on the weight because I had a homebirth and the midwife forgot her scale so we had to use 2 less accurate scales that both weighed her differently.

I just see a lot of comments here that are obviously from people who know very little about birth and assume that a c-section will always save the day. If that were the case the US wouldn’t be condemned for it’s extremely high c-section rate (30%) and dismal maternal and infant mortality rates. Saying a doctor SHOULD have performed a c-section any time something goes wrong with birth only makes it harder for the next woman to acheive the vaginal birth she wants because the OB will be scared to death and will intervene at the drop of a hat. That’s not the birthing environment that safest for women and babies so let’s not perpetuate it.

Ah yes.. lawyer did well. Doctor paying more for insurance. Doctor raising rates. Doctor turning risky patients away. And mother taking long vacation in Hawaii “recovering”.

As the mother of three, I speak from experience.
This woman had been given the appropriate medical advice but she decided the trophy of her labor story was more important than the advice of professionals…that’s her unfortunate decision and she is the ONLY one in charge of her labor.

Women need understand they not only have an active participation in their pregnancies but an active RESPONSIBILITY. Doctors and nurses are only there as guidance and stand-by medical staff.

C-Sections are not to be used as a luxury, but if they can stop mental retardation and infant deaths, then it needs to be a real option held above the ego of these mothers.

Why should she get millions for her doctors inability to force her to have a c-section??? zero sense?

If this lady was given the opinion that having a c-section was the best option and yet opted to try for a natural birth; then the responsibility rests on her.

But then there is a catch 22… of allowing her to have a say in the medical process… but then the staff should have known better then to leave the baby for that long. If it was found that she had a narrow birth canal before delivery, the choice of how to deliver should have been made long before going into labor. If the doctor truly believed C-section was the best option, she should have refused to allow the patient to try a natural birth.

I think there are probably some details that were left out of the article… seemed written in the view that the medical staff was wrong anyway.

Perhaps what doctors and hospitals should do is have their recommendations on treatments or procedures in writing and if the patient refuses this treatment or procedure it is up to them to sign a waiver releasing the staff and doctor from liability.

It’s true no baby born is guaranteed to be perfectly healthy… we can only pray they are.

As usual, there’s more to the story: “During delivery, Cassie became stuck for hours but her doctors continued to give Heather drugs to keep her uterus contracting.” Source: http://lansing.injuryboard.com/head-and-brain-injuries/birth-trauma-results-in-226-million-jury-award.aspx?googleid=239868

wow.. 13 hrs?!?!? i don’t quite understand how the dr’s let it go that long.. i have read all the comments and can certainly see both sides of the coin. yes, healthcare costs are rising due to faulty accusations and lawsuits, but with the lack of healthcare providers and them working more hours, there are also more mistakes… people need to be on top of their own healthcare (and healthcare insurance, meaning, actually get some) and stop using emergency rooms and/or urgent cares for primary care physicians..
if during this delivery, this lady felt she wasn’t being properly treated or given accurate care, at anytime, she could have asked for a patient advocate/patient representative. every hospital has them 24/7, they are there to be a voice for the patient and listen to the patient’s concerns. i do feel bad, but there are two sides to the story. i know for a fact at most OBGYN clinics they have on-call schedules, was the doctor that delivered her – her actual doctor she worked with throughout her pregnancy and set up a delivery plan with? this story goes far beyond the lawsuit.

I am a nurse and so often I get upset over so many ridiculous lawsuits out there and many that people win large sums of money who never should have!! However, in this case, I say “Yeah!” Good for her!!! There is absolutely NO reason why that baby should have stayed like that for so long!!! She should have been taken immediately for a C Section!!! This is definitely a case of negligience in my opinion. 20 million may seem like a lot to us, however once everyone gets their piece of the pie and the taxes are paid, and when you deduct what has been spent so far in medical care and the cost of special day care…… well, it’s just rght.
I recently saw a woman walk away with a large chunk of change from a lawsuit against a hospital who a jury found to be liable for the death of her baby who had multiple anomalies. She sued for having to carry this baby instead of being able to have a partial birth abortion. The nerve!! And to make it worse, she got paid for that. It’s disgusting! It makes you have little faith in the justice system. So, it’s good to hear of legitimate cases as this is!

Four years ago my 9lbs 12.5 oz son was stuck in my birth canal for 4 hours. Luckily for us our child was born healthy and has no problems. What you don’t realize is that by the doctor not taking me in to get a C-section he caused my pelvis and tailbone to break. He also caused my pubis symphis joint to become so stretched out that 4 years later I still have problems and wind up in physical therapy for months trying to keep my pelvis and sacrum in place. After the birth of our son my husband had to pick me up and put me in bed in the tub anywhere I wanted to go that would cause my legs to be seperated. It was the worse thing that has ever happened to me.
My doctor could not admit that he did this to me and that’s what hurt the most. All I wanted was “I’m sorry” but saying sorry would be admitting that he did wrong. I never thought about suing b/c my child is healthy and I will deal with any amount of pain for him to be so. I do tell everyone I know what that Dr. did to me though.

1) People are not like cars. A 1991 Honda Accord is a 1991 Honda Accord EVERY time. Same alternator EVERY time. People are not. As a surgeon, I submit that each time I perform an operation with which I am well-trained and well-versed, it different every time. One person’s pelvis is shaped a little differently…a blood that exists in one person doesn’t in another, etc…it is a constantly dynamic state.

2) I agree with some of the other comments that mentioned “defensive medicine.” It becomes easier to practice in a manner to avoid a lawsuit than in a manner that may be most practical. Remember, the “standard of care” simply means that it’s the way most of your peers would practice – that’s all. So if most of your peers are doing C-sections, that’s the standard of care. Is that how we want it to work?

3) Do you really think that “oh, the doctor isn’t actually paying for the settlement so it doesn’t hurt him…?” I went to arguably one of the best known medical schools in the world. And in total it was about $220,000.00 to go there. I get reimbursed the same rate that the folks who went to less expensive and less well-known schools get. (2 bookshelves don’t cost the same, how come your sugery does?) The point is that it is our REPUTATIONS that drive much of the referrals and patient calls. Do you actually think that people in this community where the doctor lives are not going to see the scarlet “20 million dollar settlement” embroidered on her sweater? Her professional life is likely ruined. Even if she moves…

4) Something that most doctors wouldn’t openly admit: We want to help people, but not if we make $35000 a year. If I told you that a private practice OB/GYN in Southern Florida made $275000 a year it would sound not-too-bad for most non-physicians. But what if that same doctor’s MALPRACTICE INSURANCE was $250,000 per year? Fewer of “the best” are wanting to go into medicine. There are many reasons why…

My sister had a similar situation happen to her. She tried to deliver her daughter naturally, but her daughter ended up getting stuck in the birth canal. The doctor in her situation had enough common sense to do a “c” section immediatley. Today she is perfectly healthy with an IQ of 150. In all it took about 30 minutes not 13 hours. The doctor is this situation was nothing but a complete idiot. The doctor in this situation should have to pay 20 million out of her own pocket.

It really is tragic that this happened to this child. But, are there such things as “unfortunate incidents” and “accidents” any more? I am sure the doctor did not want for this to happen. So, why should there be a $20 mil payout? Medial malpractice is becoming over the top.

The woman deserves the money for her child. The ‘Doctor’s Org.’ says “‘the Dr. did everything to do the birth right”…………..WRONG!!! They should have done a hysterectomy as soon as they knew her pelvic was too small….even ordinary people know that!! Being a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, this infuriates me that they would be so stupid.

Prayers for the little girl….may her life get better as she gets older.

Diana

13 hours stuck in the birth canal and Group Health Associates says the doctor did everything possible? Not even maybe. The doctor should have taken action and she failed to do so. Obviously the jury feels the same way. When will doctors ever admit they make mistakes???

Way to go, Filthy Attorneys! Gee, if you really gave a crap about the womna, you wouldn’t take a dime, but I assume you greedy bastards will take the usual 1/3. Thanks for elevating our already high medical costs!

This is another example of attorneys going nuts with litigation awards. I will give them that it may have been negligence, but $20 million? Who does the jury think is going to pay for that? All deliveries have risk. This is what happens when you give trial attorneys this kind of power. It is definitley obscene. Actually I blame the idiots on the jury.

This is the reason I am having difficulty in finding a OB/GYN to perform my VBAC!!! We need to start taking control of our rights as patients, trusting our Doctors that they have the best course of action and also exercising our rights to seek a second opinion if we have questions.

One issue that was not mentioned, because it is not politically correct to mention it or conduct research on it, has to do with the genetics of the mother-to-baby size ratio. Prior to World War II, cultural preferences were different, such that it would have been statistically rare for a 5-foot tall mother to have a normal-term 9-pound-plus baby. Probabilistically, she would have had a 7-pound maybe 4 ounce baby, and it would have been likely that the father was 5′6″ or 5′8″.

However, today, due to a combination of factors, including cultural preferences (mate choice), improved nutrition and medical care, the ubiquity of growth hormones, and even IVF selection preferences, we are producing gigantic babies. We know that many unmarried juvenile girls are having babies in the top decile for size and weight because they biological father, whether there was criminal activity or not, are very large, tall, heavy men.

This trend toward increased litigation due to over-large babies should be informed by additional research on the causes and possibly some public education on the subject of mate choice.

although the amount i do believe is too high, it needs to be a good amount. If the child has brain damage, she will have to have lots of medical bills for the rest of her life.

So sad, and so unnecessary. There is no reason, in the country with the best health care in the world, that any baby should remain stuck in the birth canal. Doctors should be able to recognize fetal distress as well as whether or not the labor is progressing. The doctors who did this should lose their licenses.

The Dr. should have delivered this baby immediately by c-section. Very negligent.

“Another piece of half-witted, half-baked Fox “journalism.”

This was an Associated Press story – check your facts before casting your blame.

no, the 20 mil doesn’t make the child any better off, but it sure helps mom and dad “feel better” and more importantly- the Lawyers who make the cash off of the settlement and set the tone for future lawsuits of the same type….. This just makes me sick. When will it stop.

Without Obstetricians, which is where decisions like this are pushing us, the woman and child would have simply died.

This sad circumstance was at least partially due to an insurance industry that pushes doctors to make chepater financial decisions regarding procedures like C-sections rather than medical decisions that are safest for the mother and the baby. I had a similar circumstnace when my daughter was delivered years before 1997.. Iwas told that her head was too big for my pelvis. However, my physician made the right decision and scheduled a C-section. over the disagreement of my health insurance provider My daughter never had any issues and is healthy to this day, thank Heavens.

I am in a situation where I have been helplessly watching as my fiance’ has been mis diagnosed by the charlatans here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area as having GERD. She has become anorexic and has lost approximately 60 lbs. For some ome that is 5′3″” that is a lot! She had her gall bladder removed unnecessarily and is still unable to eat solid fooad as she has been since her oral surgery that took place June of last year. She is unable to taste anything also. I took her to an Immunologist who finally diagnosed her correctly as having Laryopharyngeal Reflux. Now the main symptom of this disorder is the feeling of a lump in the throat and acid liquid coming into the mouth when one is in the UPRIGHT position..NOT in the supine or LYING DOWN position as in GERD! Last September when she was admitted to thospital the first time we brought this to the attention of the G.I. Doctor that she was fine as long as she was lying down, her problem was when she was upright, but did they listen? OF COURSE NOT! Their egos were so large that they just wouldn’t listen! So, here we are…..ten months later, my fiance’ at 60 lbs less, still unable to taste, gall bladder unneccessarily removed, and finally after four admissions to two different hospitals, treatment by over eight doctors that didn’t have the decency to just shut up for about twenty seconds to listen to the patient for a change we finally find a young immunologist that has the common sense to practice one of the basic things that are taught in medical school…..”Listen to the patient. He/she, just by telling you what is ailing him/her will be giving you a reliable indication as to what the ailment truly is”.
One of the reasons, I feel that this problem exists, especially here in Texas is eause of the all Infamous Texas Medical Reform Tort Laws as Aurthored and written up by none other than that “SNAKE IN THE GRASS” Karl Rove and signed into law by his “coheart” George W. Bush when he was spreadung his incompetenance as governor of the state of Texas. In Texas , because of these so alled “reform” laws, it is now vertually impossible to bring a malpractice lawsuite against a doctor. Due to this condition, every sorcerer and “Snake oil salesman” who calles himself a doctor has been attracted to setting up his practie in Texas since now he has, in effect, a permit to kill! Once again, THANK YOU GEORGE W. BUSH!
So, the last resort I am left with is to report these “Charlatans” to the Texas Medical Board in the hopes that maybe they will be censured or disciplined in some way that will make it more difficult for them to practice their SCAMS in the state of Texas.
So, Ohio isn’t the only place that has bad doctors, believe me…we here in Texas are probably hatching them every minute….thanks to KARL ROVE AND G.W. BUSH!!!!

This is just one of the reasons that health care cost are so high. She was in labor for more than 13 hours and refused to have a c-section. Not to long ago this woman and her baby would have died. Doctors were able to save her and her child and their thanks is a law suit. I am sorry that the child has mental problems but is it any wonder with an idiot for a mother?

I certainly hope other women will not be covetous of this woman’s award.

I agree with those who express frustration over this situation in that, once again, the monetary award is so outrageous. I do hope it’s significantly reduced in the end. I am a nurse and, as such, understand the risks in so many parts of our healthcare. Personal injury attorneys should be restricted in what they can go after and how they advertise. I am sick of commercials on TV suggesting to people that they have a case because of somthing that might have happened to them and should pursue it. I am sick of huge awards given for pain and suffering. That does not have a monetary value! Money does not take pain and suffering away! All it does is raise insurance premiums for all of us (as a nurse with two teens I pay $380/month for major medical coverage only–you’d think those of us in the business of providing healthcare might get a break but that doesn’t happen).
That said, I don’t want to sound heartless toward this woman whose child has had problems related to this delivery, but I think perspective needs to be given to it. There are major risks in childbirth and OB’s are under the gun for doing too many C-Sections. Sometimes when a baby is stuck in the birth canal, depending how far it’s advanced, there is more risk in doing a C-Section than there is continuing to attempt a vaginal birth.

If she was told she had to have a c-section and denied it, she should receive NOTHING. Cases like this are exactly what’s wrong with the medical community in this country. Why is this the doctor’s fault?

This is atrohous

Most babies in the early 20th centurye would have died. Why has medicine assumed the risk for this situation. These awards arwards are ludicruse. I do understand the award somewhat though because of future medical cost. Having babies is not a science. There are risk invovled. Medical science has only allowd a partial mitigation of these risk, not the total elimination of risk. I think juries have to understand that.

TK
Folsom, CA

First thing we need to do in this country to fix our terrible healthcare is to limit arbitrary medical malpractice awards, to lets say $500,000

This is another example of why my healthcare costs are so high and that common business sense is all that’s needed to fix the healthcare problem.

I can just imagine if god forbid obama or hillary is president and push socialized healthcare: every illegal immigrant will be utilizing the system, then suing the doctors like the woman in this article…and why not? 20M and a shot at amnesty

another reason why i’m urging my kids to go to law school

This is exactly why malpractice insurance is so high. Bad things happen even when the doctor does everything right. That is not malpractice-it is a new house for a trial attorney.

“Everything medically possible”. That’s probably the problem right there. Did they break her water? Put her on pitocin? Give her cervidil? Hook her up to monitoring? Shove the epidural in her back? (No pain just a little pressure.) Continue to bring up her “narrow arch” and enormously large 9 pound baby? What a joke. Unless this woman had some injury to her pelvis, I would be willing to bet her body would have functioned just as intended. There is a harm and a wrong. But the harm was the anti-hippocratic concept of “everything medically possible”.

Back in 1937 in Ohio my grandmother gave birth to my Aunt, she too was retarded do to the fact the nurses held my grandmothers legs together because the Doctor wasn`t in. Back then the nurses HAD to wait for the Doctors to give birth. Holding my Aunts legs together gave her no oxygen to the brain. My Aunt died when she was 28 years old, she had many complications. I remember her so well, I was just a kid then. Wish my grandmother could of sued back then.

Christie Anderson

Just more reasons for medical insurance costs going up on us. Guess how much of the 20 million that the Lawyers get!

Thanks for helping to make cost of living go up even more…

I those agree with those objecting. This is a terrible decision. Years ago there would have been deaths involved in this situation. Medical science only helps mitigate problems, not eliminate them. There are still risk involve with childbieth. Look at the problems with mothers finding ob/gyn and anesthisiologist (the most sued). I blame lawyers (greedy), insurance companies (cheap), and doctors (spineless, stand-up and say no I won;t do it), and let,s not forget juries (too generous) I think that covers everyone. The solution starts with EVERYONE

TK

Obviously the docs didn’t make sure she had a healthy delivery. They knew her birth canal was to narrow probably for a normal birth weight. That was a case that should have had a C-section scheduled to start with.
Hurray that she won! Her child will have to have major care for the rest of her life, coupled with she will never have a normal life along with the pain and agony and trauma the mother went through and the pain and trauma the baby went through during the 13 hours of hell, I would say the award is tooooooooooo little!
Anyone (whether in the health care business or not) thinking that it’s too much should think about what they went through and what they go through on a daily basis at present and for ever, and not just the amount of money!

Only in America. Everyone is a victim. $20 million award??? Why not $10million? Why not $5 million.

Guess who pays for that $20 million… everyone else.

No one wants tort reform and yet the cost of American health insurance skyrockets. Meanwhile, uninformed people listening to their Democratic Party representatives somehow believe that the rich doctor stuck it to the little guy.

We need tort reform.

Comment by Diana Crisp
May 21st, 2008 at 1:29 pm

They should have done a hysterectomy as soon as they knew her pelvic was too small….even ordinary people know that!! Being a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, this infuriates me that they would be so stupid.
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A hysterectomy??? You seriously think she should have been sterilized because one physician felt her pelvis was too small??? OMG.

If you agree with this case and the outcome, you should never question why Americas healthcare costs are so high. These cases are unheard of in other countries with “better” socialized health care systems. If America does change to a socialized healthcare system, quality of healthcare will be much worse, and suing your doctor will be like trying to sue the government.,, Good luck. Just what we need poorer healthcare with no responsibility to the patient.

Okay, even Humana-Tricare won’t allow you to have a c-section unless it proves medically necessary. No one can be certain when a vaginal birth is going to turn for the worse. Unless the child is crowning a c-section is a viable possibility for complications. Most doctors and insurance companies would prefer a woman to give birth vaginally as the world has survived in this manner for well over 2000 years!

It’s unforunate that the child suffers now, and everyone who knows her no doubt prays each day. I’m sure many folks, after reading this story, will also say a prayer for the child and others like her who suffer from complications during birth.

Every birth is different, no doctor or nurse can even begin to guess what will happen. Don’t fault the doctors for attempting to have this child born traditionally….but don’t fault the mother for being upset about the end result. Do I think she (the mother) should have gotten $20m? No. I think perhaps the ruling should have simply paid back (or reimbursed) for the hospital stay, delivery, and medicenes/prodecures needed. I doubt the child will see most of that money….

I’m so happy for your family, my daughter was born in 1997 also, and she was also stuck in the birth canal, they tried to attempt to push her also back up, ultimately they had to get a team of nurses and doctors to push down on my stomach, and pull her out with suction, she had a 1/2 indent in her head from the suction, she has had 2 eye surgeries, and has been diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder. She has also mild asperger’s. I always questioned if any of her issues were due to her delivery. I’m glad you all pursued a malpractice suit and won. Congratulations.

WOW! You people who think this mother does not deserve this outcome must have no compassion or any idea what it is like to go through something as traumatic as this. Unfortunately, our family does know, but we don’t have a special needs child, instead we get to visit our angel at the cemetery because of a doctor’s poor judgment. Have some compassion!

Dr. Yang delivered all three of my children (1997, 2001 and 2005)and was there for me during a miscarriage in 2004. She is a wonderful physician! In fact, when I was in labor with my first in July, 1997 (before the child involved in the suit), my baby’s heart rate started dropping. Dr. Yang was completely on top of the situation and recommended a c-section. I agreed and was whisked away to the OR. She was completely in charge, reviewed the risks and the situation with me and my husband and had nothing but my baby’s best interests in mind. Today my daughter is a healthy 10 year old. In addition, she delivered my son in 2001 who was diagnosed in-utero with spina bifida. It was a high risk pregnancy and she delivered him via c-section, without complication and with the utmost of care. I feel lucky to be able to continue to choose to see Dr. Yang, the obstetrician of my choice. Please don’t judge a situation until you know the full story.

Ok, first I have to laugh at Diana Crisp, who has a comment that the Dr. “should have done a hysterectomy as soon as they knew per pelvic was too small…even ordinary people know that!!” Well Diana I think you need to read before you send, since a hysterectomy was not needed, but a c-section, which was performed.

Has anyone on these boards taken the time to research if she has any other lawsuits awarded and compared it to how many babies she has delivered? Also not to mention how many other types of surgeries she has done. I think that we have to remember that Dr.’s are human and mistakes can happen.

Does anyone know how they proved that the daughter’s handicaps are because the c-section was not performed quick enough? (I seriously doubt they proved this)

Ok, first I have to laugh at Diana Crisp, who has a comment that the Dr. “should have done a hysterectomy as soon as they knew per pelvic was too small…even ordinary people know that!!” Well Diana I think you need to read before you send, since a hysterectomy was not needed, but a c-section, which was performed.

Has anyone on these boards taken the time to research if she has any other lawsuits awarded and compared it to how many babies she has delivered? Also not to mention how many other types of surgeries she has done. I think that we have to remember that Dr.’s are human and mistakes can happen. Does anyone also know how they proved that the daughter’s handicaps are because of not being delivered by c-section right away? (I seriously doubt they proved this)

People are always looking for someone else to blame…and their big payday. This is the biggest threat to healthcare in America. How can we provide the best care when every doc is afraid of unmerited litigation?
We need payout caps.
We need countersuits.
We need responsibility!

I have a friend whos vision of the ideal birth was to have that vaginal birth complete with soft lights and music. Her pregnacy was maintained with medication as she had trouble from the beginning. She was told she should probably make peace with the fact she would need a C section. When it came time she fought that C section tooth and nail even though her babys heartrate went down and stayed down with the contractions. After 5- 6 hours her doctor who had been trying to get her to consent to the c section without success finally brought her a form to sign that if she continued to fight the csection he would call in social services and psych and have them declare her incompetent. She did finally sign off on the c section but her son shows many signs of being deprived of the much needed oxygen. He also has several learning disabilities. She was depressed for months after the delivery because she didn’t delivery vaginally!! She didn’t feel she was a woman! She actually wasn’t “right” until she gave brith to her second at home in a water birth with a midwife. I think sometimes c sections are are the knee jerk response to any red flag during the birthing process but the bottom line is HEALTHY BABY!!!! Does it really matter how we get to that?

This is why American’s go without health insurance. Jury’s like this one awarding massive amounts to people. 13 hours is a long time. I’m sure things could have been handled faster. Why the doctors didn’t do a C-Section sooner is why they have to pay. $20,000,000 is excessive. It will get reduced, hopefully to $2,000,000
Stupid trial attorneys get 30% anyway.

Interesting case. being sued for allowing the child to be born naturally. What would happen if she was in the woods or decided to have baby at home.

Not sure where I stand, but I am leaning towards the doctors. That part of the woman’s body can stretch and expand to profound diameters. To say she’s small there is like saying a balloon is small before its blown up.

This is so sad. we now have a millionare little girl who will need help for the rest of her life b/c of a mistake at he delivery room. In addition, hundreds if not thousands of babies and children will never get health care b/c it just went up again. These lawsuits are why 45 million people can not get health care. The money has to come from somewhere and when we spend .30 of every $1.00 to pay for these ridiculous payouts the costs go up and the peope that need the most help get left behind. Now who’s fault is that, government, laywyers etc., no. The fault is with you and me and all of the other short minded peopel in this country and the jury. What now National Healthcare??

Wow – another stupid lawsuit to drive up the cost of health care. I have been traveling abroad to many countries for my husbands work and therefore I have been to many doctors around the world. I am here to tell you America has THE best health care in the world and if we keep up these insane lawsuits we will have the UK system of socialized medicine (long waits to see your GP, even longer lines to see a specialist – if you get to see one at all).

I thank her for sending us straight to socialized medicine.

Narrow pelvis doesn’t mean you have to get a C section.
I finally found a Doctor and a nurse/midwife that new what they were doing for my 3rd delivery.
Deliviering on your back compresses the arch up to an 1.5!

Doctor didn’t know what s/he was doing.. good call.
Suppposed to start C section right away if their are problems not a dozen hours later!

This proves, once again, why medical malpractice suits should not be decided by a jury of lay-people. They simply do not have the knowledge to decide if the doctor was truly negligent. More often than not it comes down to emotional decisions with ridiculous monetary awards. If we don’t fix the medical tort system in this country, we’re in danger of losing a large number of great doctors.

Hell, all I ever wanted was to find a girl with a narrow pelvic arch.

Yeah, right, and doctors never make mistakes because they’re God, right? The damn fools should have done a c-section in the first place when they found she had a narrow birth arch.
I hope she wins her case and it’s upheld on appeal; then maybe other doctors will take a lesson from it and save someone else from the same misery and dumb mistake..

This is a case of a Dr. who didn’t care or wasn’t paying attention – 13 hours – Come on! I was in labor for 18 hours with my daughter who wasn’t coming down despite NOT BEING STRAPPED to the bed as one post said – before my Dr. told me that she didn’t want me to continue, as it wasn’t safe. I think more Dr.s need to try to not listen to all of the people crying about the rate of C-Sections. There is nothing wrong with having a C-Section; whatever gets the baby and mom through safely is what is most important. Does anyone pay attention to the fact that reports say we are a nation that is getting heavier – so if you are eating a lot while you are pregnant you just might have a large baby or you may have gestational diabetes and have a large baby – there are a lot of factors to consider. This Dr. deserved to be put in this position – what she did was irresponsible if not cruel to her patient and baby.

I was told after 16 hours of labor that I was not progressing and that I needed a C-Section. I, too, was told I had a small pelvic inlet, too small for my 8 lb. baby to successfully descend. While it was not a choice I wanted to make or would’ve made for myself, I was told by the doctor that I needed a surgical birth. I wasn’t given a choice to wait things out and “see what happens”. Of course, you think doctors just want to make more money by performing a C-Section, but the last thing they want is to be sued. Something went very a-foul in this situation. Either the doctor wasn’t as on top of the labor as she should’ve been or the patient decided on her own to wait the labor out. Either way, this poor child will suffer a lifetime of physical challenges because of this. People are SO anti-C-Sections and when they are medically necessary women tend to become angry and feel cheated. Trust the doctor. If they say you need one, you need one! Don’t listen to the women who have birthed before you naturally and successfully and without drugs and without complications. EVERY situation is different, every woman is different. This woman had almost 10 months to size this doctor up. If the doctor seemed incompetent enough to cause a situation like this, she should’ve changed physicians. If the doctor was successfully sued, then the doctor is indeed liable and responsible.

My son was nine and a half pound when he came out. Took them almost 10 hours to deliver. He’s graduating fr college in couple of weeks. Come to think about it, doctors gave my wife an option,
caesarian or natural? Wife chose natural.

Wow, 20 Million, kind of like winning the lottery. Can you say “excessive.”

Did the mother attempt a vaginal delivery by choice? If the doctors told her she had a small pelvis why did they allow a vaginal delivery attempt?

I bet a large chuck of that went to the attorney. This is why we need tort reform.

Mark (May 21st, 2008 at 1:47 pm), you are a nimrod. I don’t even know where to begin. Small women have been giving birth to babies that are to big for them (or at least trying to) for centuries. Why do you think so many women died during childbirth? What the heck does criminal activity have to do with anything?

Anyway, here’s something we should think about before we sue our doctors and hospitals: If you were giving birth all by yourself in your home, who would you sue when your baby got stuck in your birth canal? I’m not saying doctors shouldn’t be held responsible for their mistakes–hospitals kill thousands of people every year–but doctors are there to try to help; they are not miracle workers. They don’t deserve that much credit!

We put our lives in the hands of these doctors? If it is true this woman, and her doctor already knew there was an issue, then how could this happen.

what hospital in Cincinnati?

I want to clear up some misconceptions that I see in your article and the comments. First, the average labor is 12-16 hours. Many labors last much longer than this and many are much shorter. So for a woman to be in labor 13 hours is not unusual.

Second, all babies have their head squeezed. The bones are not fixed in a newborn and they override and often form a “pointy” head. However, it does not cause brain damage for this normal process to take place. The neat thing is that a woman’s bones also expand. So you cannot really tell which babies will fit based on size or shape of the woman’s pelvis or size of the baby. Also the babies’ and mothers’ position makes a difference. For instance the pelvis is wider when the mother stands and puts weight on her feet. So some women who may not be able to deliver lying down, may be able to deliver when standing up. I have seen 6 lb babies get stuck, and 11 lb babies slide right out no problem. You really can’t tell ahead of time.

Third, there is no way to predict if a baby will be a normal, healthy child. There are no guarantees, whether the baby arrives vaginally or by c-section, that it will be free of injury or illness. From what medical experts can tell most neurological injuries occur prior to the birth process. However there is some evidence for increased injury with induction of labor.

The c-section trend is on the way up -30% of women now have c-sections. The problem with this is many of these women do not need a c-section and put themselves at risk of all the complications of surgery unnecessarily. This can have lifelong implications for the woman, her baby, and her future pregnancies. Visit the International Cesarean Awareness Network Website (www.ican-online.org) more information on c-sections.

I really don’t have enough information in the article to know if anything was done wrong. It sounds like a normal labor but the baby has neurological injuries. $20,000,000 sounds like an awful lot of money though. The reporter needs to do some more research!

Praise God for doctors. Having a child born in 1971 and 2 more in the next 8 years, I can tell you how grateful I was to have a doctor watching. When 8 1/2 months pregnant I went for regular weekly visit. The doctor was concerned and had X-RAYS taken. He found that I would never be able to have a child naturally. My daughter was delivered by C-section and weighed 8lbs. 10oz.
She was perfect. My other 2 children were delivered C-section and all are healthy grown adults with healthy children of their own. Thank the good Lord for attentive doctors. You should give doctors some credit for what they know and do. Otherwise, why go to them?

This is why we can’t afford healthcare in this country anymore. I work in a Women’s Health Clinic and I know what a provider goes through to get pd for what they do, and then to be sued because of a patient’s stupidity.

IF THESE SORRY NAME FOR A DOCTOR’S NEW 9 MONTHS EARLIER THAT SHE HAD A “NARROW PELVIC ARCH” WHY DID THEY NOT PREPARE FOR THE C-SECTION BEFORE AND 13 HRS. LATER. NO AMOUNT WILL COMPENSATE WHAT THE FAMILY AND THEIRE DAUGTHER ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE REST OF THEIR LIFES. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I would like to respond to the comment posted by Tiffany—– first of all a home birth is a very large risk, I would rather have a C-section than give birth at home. Second, does any ever stop to think of how much more time it takes a provider to do a C-Section so therefore why do you think that a Dr would rather do a C-section as opposed to a vaginal delivery

Sometimes ordinary people think they are as smart as Drs and Nurse Midwives who have dedicated their lives to their education and careers.

Comment by Renee
May 21st, 2008 at 3:27 pm
WOW! You people who think this mother does not deserve this outcome must have no compassion or any idea what it is like to go through something as traumatic as this. Unfortunately, our family does know, but we don’t have a special needs child, instead we get to visit our angel at the cemetery because of a doctor’s poor judgment. Have some compassion!
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Renee,

My prayers go out to you and your family. As you’ve stated yourself, your precious one was an angel and so is this poor – innocent child who did not ask to be born like this. The term ‘angel’ however implies that there is God. As a believer I have to say that sometimes things happen for whatever reason the almighty wants. It is not fair to blame doctors in these cases.

In this case though I would say the two guilty parties are the mom and our current society. The mom because she refused a C-section under doctors strong suggestions. The society is at fault is because the doctors couldn’t force the woman to have a C-Section as they are afraid that we would be blogging on a similar article titled “Woman wins $20 Mil from Doctor who forced C-Section against her will”

There are incompetent, lazy medical professionals out there to be sure. I am not saying that this was an example, but they are there, and we as patients are at their mercy.

I was induced with my son at 39 weeks because they felt my placenta was no longer nourishing him well enough. They felt that he was, at best, 5lbs 13 ozs. At the induction, I asked for an epideral. Yes, I know this was my choice. I wish now that I had not done it.

The anesthesiologist who performed epi was supposed to do one simple, yet extremely important thing…before he injected the meds into my spine he was supposed to do a drawback to look for blood, to see if he was in a vein or artery first. He did not. Instead he was in a complete hurry. We counted 5 needle sticks on my back where he had tried to stick me. He just didn’t care about what he was doing.

Instead of putting the meds in my spine, he injected it into my bloodstream. I became numb from the chest down. I was sluggish, slurring my words, and was afraid to close my eyes (as the nurses kept suggesting I do), to rest. I was afraid that if I closed my eyes, I may not open then again, and my baby needed me to be alert for him. I kept telling them something was wrong. They kept telling me to “rest, close your eyes and rest.” Once the doc got there, he became very angry at the staff. He knew something was wrong. He yelled at them to turn off the epi meds, to unhook me from everything and get me up and pushing NOW!

You see, my 6lb baby now had pain medicine circulating in his body, medicine that was meant for my adult spine, not either of our bloodstreams. I was put on oxygen for the baby, his numbers were dropping fast. My bloodpressure, which runs low anyway, was going into dangerous numbers. My son’s heartbeat was in single digits. All this was unknown to me at the time, I was just trying to push with a body that was completely numb. I was stunned when my baby came out gray and lifeless, with a suction cup on his head that looked like a yarmuke.
The anesthesiologist had left the room already, with a “good luck!” He knew what he had done to me.

Did I sue? No, and I won’t. But I will also never, ever forget that day. Had it not been for the calm, quickwittedness of my ob, my baby might have died. Thank god he didn’t. Thank god my little guy was a fighter and came out fine.

Do I agree with a 20$ mil lawsuit? Well, I know in the end, we all pay for it, just as we all pay for every forclosure, bankruptcy, “debt reduction plan”, etc. But, something does need to be done to get rid of the incompetents, so the many great medical people can afford to keep working, so that they are not afraid to do something without fear of a lawsuit. My ob is a great medical professional. The anesthesiologist should be removed from practice.

The ambulance chasers are going to destory this country!!!

Yet another blatant reminder of why health care costs continue to spiral out of control and why Doctors take early retirement.

Until we change the laws regulating litigation in this society, the resultant rising cost of all goods and services will create an even deeper chasm between the have and have nots. An even deeper cost is the evaporation of responsibility and accountability from our way of life for generations to come.

There’s only one winner; the American Bar Association.

An unfortunate event but does this woman really deserve $20M from it? The only ones paying for this ridiculous settlement are the rest of us who are forced to pay outrageous health insurance costs as a result of over the top awards such as this one

I find it rather appalling that your headline reads woman “wins” 20 million…..she didn’t win anything, she was awarded the money for the care of her child due to the negligence of the physicians and hospital staff. That money will never even come close to compensating her for the emotional pain and suffering she has been through and will go through for the rest of her life. Shame on you!

I being a mother myself of a very healthy 6 yr old have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I think it’s important for everyone to REMEMBER that there are 2 sides to EVERY story. I do not agree in frivolous law suits; however I’m not sure this is frivolous. If you’re a parent how would you feel? I think it’s pretty crappy that everyone on this message board is judging this lady! You can’t judge someone until you’ve been in their shoes! I realize the $ will not give the child a normal life, however think of the mounting medical bills this lady has to have for a child that is mentally retarded! Not that she’ll ever see a dime of it anyway due to the appeals process! I know I would be bitter and every single one of you typing on this message board that are parents and TRUELY UNDERSTAND what it’s like to be a parent just might change you views before judging this lady!!!!!!

I have to say, that the mother is wrong to sue the doctors… the doctors told her that she had a narrow arch and that she still wanted to prusue it. And they followed it through what she wanted. So, Its the mothers fault. Money can not fix her mistake I think 20 Mil. Is a too much. I mean jeese What a stupid argument.

I can’t believe that this woman won money for having a mentally challenged daughter. Survival of the fitest. 100 years ago the child and mother would have both died, or if the child was handicapped, they would have killed the baby inway. Whos to say that the baby or the mother didn’t have a preexisting that wouldn’t have mattered if the labor was 13 hours anyway. I think that the mom was looking for some easy money and she got it.

I agree with Karen, I am also a nurse and a mother and have attending > than 1000 woman giving birth. As a nurse there are guidelines to follow in the “text book” process of labor and delivery and it’s variations. This includes but not limited to hours of labor, progress, conditions that may interupt “normal” labor progress etc… Was there fetal distress, was there lack of progress, interventions, risk. All of this involves a team nurse, doctor, family patients (no particular order of importance listed here). However with my limited knowledge of the situation. There was a risk due to the fact that this was a VBAC. What was the reasons for the first c-birth? Critical thinking skills from the team is required. Physician’s and nurses are patient advocates. The patient has rights, hospitals and medical/nursing personal have responsibilities to inform patient’s of their rights risk and responsibilities. Maybe this was information that was reviewed by the decision makers in their court case. Patient’s do have the right to make choices in their health care decisions.

The doctors need to just start doing C-sections all of the time. The patient was properly informed and the woman made a decision for her selfish self and her child. The doctors do not deserve this, and we as patients do not deserve the high cost of healthcare and loss of access to doctors due to these frivilous lawsuits. Making money off of you child’s situation is just plain sick. Just like people blame doctors for their kids autism. What a joke. Try to solve the problem yourself. Stop trying to blame everyone but yourself.

By the way LaLa the cord is usually wrapped around the babies neck. All three of mine had the cord around their neck. They are fine. Be thankful that you have a clean hospital and doctors and nurses around for help. Spent 3 years in central Africa and guess what no doctors, no nurses and no hospitals. Be grateful.

Over 45 years ago Imwasm told I had a narrow pelvic arch a few weeks before I was to deliver my first child. The doctor recommended a c= section w, which I had and safely delivered. I think the doctor was extremely negligent in this case and the award was justified

I don’t care for verb in the headline. This woman didn’t WIN $20M. She suffered through this ordeal and now has a handicapped child. She was justifiably compensated for this tragic situation. Now this money can help provide better services for her child and probably pay for many other bills.

This doctor probably didn’t get enough training to dx a big baby into a narrow pelvis…. hellooo, you had 9 months to plan a “healthy delivery”!!! I gues she made a pelvic exam, or read the medical record in case she was not her patient, please… you had 13 hours to do it! What about an ultrasound to see the size of the baby and measure the head, no?
It is too sad…

This bothers me because there are people out there born with genetic defects similar to the condition of the baby in this case and they receive no money simply for being born that way.

This is a prime example of displaced risk — especially if a C-section was declined initially. You cannot expect to live in this world and be free of all risk and then feel entitled to money if the consequences of your decisions happen to be damaging.

And also, a prime example of misplaced award money. This money should not all go to this woman. This money should go to a fund that helps us pay for our health insurance.

Let me guess…She insisted on an epidural for her alleged “natural” childbirth, couldn’t feel to push, had to be on her back (which decreases the pelvis opening to maximum capacity), then when she couldn’t push the baby out after 13 hours, decided it was the doctor’s fault after she argued about the c-section the whole time.

My midwife has delivered DOZENS of 10-12 lb. babies at home with no problems (including no tearing and no episiotomies) but the moms have to be able to move into different positions and feel what they are doing. No epidurals. If the baby isn’t pushed out within a few hours, they go to the hospital for a c-section. 13 hours is WAAY too long.

If the baby was left in the canal for 13 hours the Dr. DID NOT do everything that she could have. The Dr. should have done a C-section much earlier for the health of the baby.

When my daughter born in 1989 it was the same problem. Stuck in the birth canal. And the Dr. make the last move after more than 7 hours. I told him from the first appt. I need a C-Sec. It was my third baby and the last!! With the first two, the Drs. use Forceps. Now I can not go to a Pap Test because I am so afraid of DRs!!!

First of all, you can’t get the whole story from a news blurb that is only a few sentences long. I’m sure that there is more to this story that we’ve read at this point. Did the doctor(s) make a judgement error? probably. Was there blame to be had by the patient? probably. Are the lawyers greedy? definitely. Simple facts are that juries can not always be trusted to hand down reasonable or correct decisions. They look at a mentally retarded child, then they look at the doctor and will say “You know, this young mother needs the money, and besides, the doctor is insured. They can afford to pay some money.” Tort lawyers feed on the feelings of the jury, whether their case has merit or not.

Tort reform is not only a good idea, but it is financially necessary in some states. At one time in an area of North Carolina, there were no neurosurgeons available. At least two patients died in the southeaster corner of the state because they had no access to physicians who could have saved their lives. Why? Because all of the neurosurgeons in this area were driven out by exorbitant malpractice premiums. (you can thank John Edwards for that since he was one of the main malpractice lawyers in that region). Should it be difficult to sue a doctor? Yes! If you have a legitimate claim, it will pass tests, and proceed for litigation. If the case has no merit, then it is dropped before the doctor has to bring in his malpractice lawyers (which would ultimately increase their premiums)

It becomes almost a philosphical question to ask to what extent a doctor should have to pay for a mistake. If a doctor works for 20 years, seeing patients on an almost daily basis, and makes one critical mistake out of say–150,000 patient encounters, that would constitute an error rate of 0.0000006%. If you consider the quality of care that this doctor has given over the past 2 decades, how much should he/she have to pay? Should he or she lose their license and job, or house, or savings? What is appropriate in this case?

Do not vilify this doctor until you know all of the circumstances. Think back on your own career; did you ever make a mistake? Let he who is sinless cast the first stone.

I am a physician.

I will avoid comment about this case specifically as NONE OF US EXCEPT THE PARTICIPANTS know
the facts of the case.

I WILL comment regarding what this verdict will mean for the future of US Medicine in general:

Fewer OB physicians.

The day will come, and is already here in some parts of the country, where women and their babies
will be placed in medical jeopardy, with, inevitably, a small number dying, during a difficult
delivery, due to the inability to find a physician, ANY physician, to attend the patient’s bedside.

I am reminded of a true incident several years ago where, in a small southern town, a female
plaintiff’s attorney, who had sued every available OB in the town, at one time or another, became
pregnant. ALL of the OB’s in town declined to treat her, fearing the perceived huge medico-
legal risk of doing so, and she was compelled to drive 100 MILES ONE WAY to a neighboring city
for her OB care. When she went into labor, her family had to drive her 100 miles to deliver her child.
Imagine the risk of such activity, especially to the unborn child who shoulders the GREATEST RISK of
such a drama, while, paradoxically, standing as the one MOST INNOCENT of any motive or action.

Decisions in the jury box have BOTH short-term consequences for the plaintiff-at-hand, AND
long-term consequences for society in general. Jurors must be prepared to consider both and
weigh their decisions accordingly as they WILL be called upon, eventually, to live with the
consequences of their decision.

This is why health care costs are out of control in the USA…. even if there was malpractice involved, $20M is ridiculous!!! it’s you and I reading this post that end up paying for this woman’s $20M cush fund. Personally, I’d rather go back a few years when nobody won huge sums of money and I only paid half of what I do today in health insurance!

I want everyone to know that Dr. Lisa Yang has been my OB/GYN for the last nine years. My second pregnancy was high risk, and she cared for me and delivered my son eight years ago. I trust her implicitly and would not hesitate to go to her if I had any OB/GYN problems, malpractice verdict or not. Dr. Yang, if you read this, I am sorry that you had to go through this, but it does not change my opinion of you in the least.

I find it funny that all of the news outlets that have reported this story, including the local Cincinnati media, only portray the plaintiff’s side. People should remember that there are two sides to each story, and from reading some of the other posts it seems that this woman was fully advised of the dangers of a vaginal birth but chose to proceed. That’s like playing Russion Roulette – you know there’s a bullet somewhere in that gun but you go ahead and put the gun to your head and pull the trigger but then want someone to pay for the damage when you shoot yourself in the brain.

I used to be a litigation attorney and I worked on several malpractice cases representing the doctor. People need to realize that there are risks, and if you can’t deal with the potential outcome, don’t take that course of action. Risks are not read for you just to waste your time – they are read to you to let you know what you are facing. All accidents are not actionable.

here’s how ridiculus $20M is… let’s say this money was invested (as it should be) for the child’s welfare. A decent money manager will obtain a 10% return based upon stocks, equities and a whole bunch of other stuff that’s not my profession to understand. A 10% return means that the mother of this child could withdraw $2M each year to care for the child. I don’t think that I could spend $2M in a year on anything! Even if I were to pay off all of my debt and my mortgage and then go buy absolutely everything I wanted… there will still be money left over.

How bout we all just go back to assuming that this case just cost all of us Americans a few more pennies per year in health insurance… coupled with the thousands of other cases each year, those pennies quickly add up to tens or hundreds of dollars.

Boy, this sounds alot like what happened during my delivery. I was told I could NOT pass a baby more than 6lbs.. Finally, after hours and extreme pain and suffering my 8lb. 10 oz boy was born. He was a code blue and nearly died at birth.

I’ve been told not much can be done about his mild autistic condition – speech, behavior, & eating disorder.

If possible, who was your attorney?

This should have never occurred. I was told one doctor won’t go against another doctor.

I was told I had a narrow pelvic arch as well, when I was 12 weeks pregnant with my first child. My OB told me that I’d be at “increased risk” for a c-section, but that she’d see how things progressed throughout my pregnancy (as your ligaments and pelvis tend to loosen up and open up during pregnancy). “narrow pelvic arch” does not equal automatic c-section. I dont’ see where this woman was told she *must* have a c-section. As it turned out, I needed to be induced 11 days past my due date… after 12 hours of pitocin and no real progress, I had a c-section. Every nurse that checked me commented on how small pelvic opening was. And I am not some petite person-I’m a good size 12, 5′6″. Your size has nothing to do with the shape of your pelvic arch. My OB would have allowed me to continue laboring if I had wanted, but it’s stories like this one that make me glad I chose to go ahead and have the surgery! My son is perfectly healthy. I had an easy time of everything.

I chose a c-section for #2 as well. Two other doctors (different practice) also commented on my “narrow pelvic arch” and said I would not be a good candidate for a VBAC. I know some of the Natural Childbirth types like to behave as though this some super rare condition that probably doesn’t really exist, but it does. My situation could have turned out like this woman’s did. God forbid I was doing this 150 years ago-I’d be a statistic, and so would my son.

Maybe the attorney should split his share of the money with the doctor, who may never be able to practice again because of this ridiculous jury decision. Not that I blame her… why would you ever want to take care of another person when a ‘jury of your peers’ would crucify you like this? Does anyone else think that in such cases the jury should all be PhD educated to be considered ‘peers’?
Babies have had complications in birth since the beginning of time… and to think that one doctor can change that is insane. These things happen. Why are doctors supposed to be perfect when nobody else is? I can’t even get the right food in the bag at the drive thru window… EVER… and these are my peers? Insanity! I hope this doctor says the hell with all of you and finds a career that is actually rewarding, not punishing.

And people wonder why healthcare is expensive? If we’d quit suing doctors for false reasons, then they’re insurance premiums would decrease as well as ours. Just shows how we are a greedy taking-responsibility-challlenged average american, which is the root of most of our socials problems

She doesnt desirve a dime that is the risk you take when you get pregnate. No wonder our medical system is so screwed up and expensive.

Also, to the previous poster, the mom was not in labor for 13 hours… the baby was stuck in the birth canal for 13 hours. That is obviously not OK. Must have been a complete *nightmare*.

I really don’t have enough information in the article to know if anything was done wrong. It sounds like a normal labor but the baby has neurological injuries. $20,000,000 sounds like an awful lot of money though. The reporter needs to do some more research!

Maybe you need to do more research. $20 Million is nothing when you consider past medical bills. Why don’t you do a little more research before you run your mouth about a “normal baby with neurological injuries. It is not hard to find ….

“A Blue Ash woman whose baby was stuck in her birth canal for 13½ hours won $22.6 million Monday in a medical malpractice lawsuit.

A Hamilton County jury – which heard five weeks of testimony and deliberated for 3½ days – found physician Lisa Yang and her doctors group, Group Health Associates, negligent in the case.

Jurors also found that the doctor and her group knew or should have known their actions would have resulted in brain injuries during the Sept. 4, 1997, birth of Cassie Grow.

“The evidence was pretty compelling that this baby was not going to fit” through Heather Grow’s birth canal, the mother’s attorney, Patrick P.J. Beirne, of Covington, said Monday.Yang, Group Health Associates and Good Samaritan Hospital denied that they were negligent.

In the summer of 1997, Heather Grow was pregnant with her first child. Her doctors told her that she had a narrow pelvic arch. That became a major medical issue two weeks before she gave birth when doctors realized that her child – at about nine pounds – was going to be big.

“The child got stuck. It was clear that she was pushed through an (opening) she couldn’t fit. And this went on for hours and hours,” Beirne said. “It was like trying to fit a watermelon through (an opening) the size of an apple.”

In addition to being a big baby in a small canal, the baby’s injuries also were caused because medical workers – supervised by Yang – continued to give the mother drugs to make the uterus contract, hoping to expel the baby. The result was a uterus contracting on the baby’s stuck head, causing brain damage.

“She was having contractions every one to two minutes for hours. It violates every medical textbook. It puts the baby and mom (in) danger,” said Mark Mueller, another Grow attorney, from Austin, Texas.

The mother was in labor from 9 a.m. until 10:30 p.m., Beirne said, before the baby was delivered by Caesarian section.

“The doctor had a responsibility to ensure she had a safe delivery,” Mueller said.

The baby suffered brain damage that will affect her for life because her head was squeezed for so long.

Cassie, now 11, is a spastic quadriplegic. That means she has limited use of her limbs.

She can walk short distances but needs a walker. She can see but because the part of her brain that processes vision was damaged, her brain can’t properly interpret what her eyes see. She has problems using her hands, and she is mildly retarded, Mueller said.

“These are permanent injuries,” Mueller said.

Jurors also found that Good Samaritan Hospital workers were negligent in the delivery, but didn’t order the hospital to pay monetary damages.

The jury ruled that Yang and Group Health Associates have to pay the Grow family $22,646,023.

The vast majority of that was $7,959,747 for Cassie’s future medical bills and $7.5 million for her future loss of ability to perform usual activities. She also was awarded $3 million for pain and suffering.

Neither Yang nor Group Health Associates could be reached Monday.”

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008805200319

There are many tests these days to monitor both the progress of labor and the condition of a baby. Although it is possible for labor to take longer than a day to progress toward birth, a baby ’stuck in the birth canal’ can be easily checked. Mothers with an extremely narrow pelvic arch might go through a trial labor, but after hours with little progression, this mother should have been given the option of a C-section intervention. To a degree all babies are ’stuck’ in the birth canal for a while. Thankfully, babies heads are pretty collapsible and can accommodate quite a bit of stress from going through such a narrow space. The problem with the arms may have been caused by compression to the nerves of the shoulders, or from the force of a high forceps delivery attempt. 100 years ago, this baby would have probably died in utero if she were truly stuck. Labors often went on for days to a week or two with high infant and maternal mortality. My grandmother labored for a week when she had my father. She was one of the first c-sections that were done using modern techniques where both the baby and mother lived.
With so many c-sections being performed today it only stands to reason that women who might have died in childbirth are living and producing other women with small pelvic structures, thus perpetuating the problem at an even greater rate. What used to die is now being saved and living to their own child bearing years. A c-section done judiciously and in a timely manner can save many lives.
But nowadays, a hasty decision to do a C-section not only is frowned upon by hospital administrators, but also 3rd party reimbursers. Aside from that, the doctor may have been attempting to save the mother the both the financial and physical costs of a C-section. And they DO come at a cost.
I had both of my children by c-section after 24 hours of labor with no progress. I am glad that both are relatively ok. But my body was shot in the process. I have had one complication after another due to the c-sections—infections, hernias, scars, displaced organs, adhesions that had to be surgically removed, etc. I hope the jury or the judge are not too hasty in this case and consider all pertinent facts.

It is amazing how many people posting here lack any sense of logical thought. Unless you have personal knowledge of the facts beyond what was reported in this sensationalistic and watered down article, it is blatantly obvious that there is not enough information presented to know what happened exactly and who (if anyone) was at fault. All these judgemental comments are indicitive of how badly screwed up our judicial/jury system is. The facts don’t matter!!! Just blame the doctor!!! What a mindset… Hope all you women and expecting mothers realize all this does is discourage intelligent and capable medical students from becoming good OB/GYN’s… Good luck finding a good one in the future as they will become more and more rare.

This is why I do not deliver babies anymore- and never want to again. I’ve literally seen crack moms whoop with glee when I tell them that their baby will have serious problems-not from malpractice, but from NO prenatal care, using drugs all throughout the pregnancy, and even smoking crack while in labor (snuck in by the “baby’s daddy”). She thought it meant she was gonna be a millionaire. Or the numerous illegal aliens( 30% of the babies born here) who, if they have a healthy baby, disappear after having the baby and getting the birth certificate and NOT paying anyone. God forbid they have a problem with the baby- it’s an instant lawsuit. Not only do they stay in America with their “anchor baby” but now they are millionaires, even if the doctor did nothing wrong ! America’s great ! Most of the bad deliveries have far more to do with the mother than anything else. No prenatal care ( available FREE at the county health department), smoking, doing drugs, refusing to help control their blood pressure or sugar, etc….
Why not ? It’s a sure thing, compared to the lottery ! In this case, the woman insisted she knew more than the doctor did and her child paid the most for her stupidity.
Next time you need someone to deliver your baby- go see a lawyer and see how good a job they do delivering it !
The lawyers say ” a person who defends himself has an idiot for a client”. Well, I say ” a person who insists they know more than the doctor has an idiot for a patient”.

Lawsuits have nothing to do with healthcare costs. In North Carolina, doctors are receiving refunds from their malpractice insurers while the tort reformers are screaming for an end to frivolous lawsuits.

Jeez. Another lawsuit. While being in the birth canal for 13 hrs, makes absolutely no sense, this lawsuit will effect an already broken system. The doctors are not the only ones who have to pay for this mistake but the hundreds of thousands of women who’s option of natural delivery are taken away each time a lawsuit happens. The malpractice insurance goes up and doctors have to close their practice or induce a c-section to avoid a lawsuit, thus putting more women at risk. There was plenty that could have been done had she had the proper support. The entire industry needs a overhaul. They need to train from midwives if they are to continue in this line of work or better yet, let’s take away the obstretrics and use midwives and surgeons when a c-section is absolutely necessary. This would drive down the cost for the insurance companies tremendously thereby improving the prenatal and post natal environment in this country. Women tend to sue only when there’s a natural birth but how about the countless women who have been violated with unnecessary c-sections. It just isn’t right. Maybe if a group of us got together and sued the doctors who have violated us than it would even out the playing field.

That’s why all the docs are moving to Texas and the trial lawyers moving to Ohio, liability reform. I’d rather have good medical options than good legal options.

I am quite surprised this woman’s obstetrician did not order a pelvimetry pelvis x-ray. It is a simple anterior and lateral set of radiographs that measures the mother’s pelvic inlet/outlet in relationship to the fetus’ head diameter. The doctor knows in a matter of minutes if all is safe to proceed or go to c-section. I suppose in this radiation phobic society no one even considers this life saving film technique. There is little harm to the baby as it is fully formed, considering the risk of brain damage induced by forcing a too large head through a too small pelvis. How very sad and unfortunate. If any of the numbskulls commenting otherwise on this site had lost a child in utero, they too would feel nothing but sadness and pain for this family. But of course, most of these morons are in full belief that the fetus only starts living once it pokes its head out of the birth canal. We live in a sorry world.
- a radiation practioner

If they can pay 34.5 million to sign on a sweaty football jock to throw a pigskin – they can certainly spare the current compensation afforded this child and parent and her parents! Now, if we can get a reasonable judge to award our automobiles pain and suffering for the “rape” they endure at the gas pump, we will all be happy!

The system is flawed that this can take place. We now have a Lottery mentality type of system. This is THE main reason that our health care is so expensive. People can not accept that things happen. THis woman, from what I understand, was told that she had a narrow canal. She wanted to have it naturally and it didn’t work, so because of HER mistake we all will pay for it thru higher costs. I am not saying that every lawsuit is frivilous but these types are. Now every one who has had a problem is going to be calling the lawyers for their lottery winnings. My Grandmother, who will be 100 in September, had one of her 4 daughters with Cerebral Palsy. That aunt will be 82 in August. I have never heard her complain If that had been today and someone else was that mother and child, the lawsuits would be flying. Lawyers are involved with suits regarding the fact that children are born with Downs Syndrome. This is life and things happen. Take the good with the bad. I hope this is overturned. Our society is going to hell in a hand basket because of this attitude. We are going to bankrupt the medical profession and also businesses as the lawsuits ruin America. I have a friend who is an OB/GYN and the cost of malpractice insurance is unbelievable, and they have NEVER had a complaint or problem. We will drive the GOOD doctors out of the profession. I see it everyday as OB/GYNs are leaving the OB field because of these types of legal extortion issues. God Help Us.

I THINK THIS ARTICLE IS LUDICROUS. THERE IS NO WAY A BABY CAN BE IN THE BIRTH CANAL FOR 13 HOURS. I AM A LABOR AND DELIVERY NURSE WITH MANY YEARS EXPERIENCE. I AM APPALLED THAT ANYONE CAN BE AWARDED THIS AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR THIS EXPERIENCE. I HOPE THE ATTORNEY REPRESENTING THIS PATIENT HAS TROUBLE SLEEPING OVER THIS, AS THE DOCTOR PROBABLY HAS SINCE 1997. WE AS HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS ARE NOT IN THIS BUSINESS TO HURT BABIES BUT SOMETIMES BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE.

$$$$$$….any questions????

My nephew says that he wants to be a doctor. Abusive lawsuits like this make me want to discourage him. This country rewards those who can hit a little white ball into a hole much more than those who spend their lives in school and training who are actually trying to a provide a useful service to society. I can live if Tiger Woods doesn’t win the Masters, but will my wife live if we can’t find an OB/GYN? Lawsuits like this will only make access more difficult.

I find it amazing all of the conclusion some of the readers here have managed to come to with so little information available. People blaming the mother, others figuring the jurors were stupid? Where does it say in this article that the Mother choose natural child birth? Where does it say that she refused a c-section and then wanted one later? How the heck do people jump to such massive conclusions when so little information is available? The jurors had much much more information available to them and plenty of time to mull over and discuss this issue and low and behold they felt the doctor was negligent. Do I think juries are always right? No, but couldn’t it be possible, just possible that the jury knew what it was doing? Couldn’t it be possible that the doctor was too busy being right, instead of paying attention?

There are plenty of times when doctors have been too busy knowing it all to pay attention to the obvious! Many many people have had their lives affected by the arrogance that can occur in the medical world. Are all doctors bad? No, but they aren’t all good either and sometimes you get to discover that your doctor is an idiot when you are in the middle of a life threatening situation! Then what are you supposed to do?

Been there, done that! My doctor (OBGYN) knew that I have very short labors. I spent over 2 weeks in the hospital flat on my back trying to avoid a premature delivery, then one day my doctor examined me and told me that I was dilated far enough and the baby was small enough that if I sneezed hard I could delivered! That night I went into labor and the nurses attempted to stop it but were unsuccessful. They called my doctor and he told them to let my labor progress since the drugs weren’t working. He did not come to the hospital. This man who knew I have short labors and who told me that I could deliver this baby if I sneezed hard enough, told the nurses to let my labor continue and then never bothered to come to the hospital! He missed the delivery and then proceeded to yell at the nurse for not calling him soon enough. I had the presence of mind to rip a strip off of him myself and tell him that he had no business yelling at her since I heard the nurse call him and he was the one who told them to let the labor proceed and yet didn’t come to the hospital until he felt like it.

For those who wish to condemn this mother for not doing things as she should have. I ask you what you think she should have done? How do you force someone in a position of power to do what you know they should? How are you supposed to have the medical knowledge to know when your doctor is wrong? Give your head a shake! Do use your heads and remember the woman was in labor! Not exactly the time to be making life and death decisions, more like the time to focus on surviving through the next contraction. While some women do have lighter labor pains and manage birthing babies with little difficulty there are others who go through absolute hell before their children are born and if this woman is a member of that group, expecting her to be thinking about much other than survival is pretty unrealistic.

If you think 20 million is extravagant you might want to check into the hospital fees for having a baby that requires special care. I live in Canada and we were told that if my daughter had been born in the U.S. that it would have cost us somewhere around 1 million dollars before she left the hospital. If the doctor was negligent as the jury found her to be, then shouldn’t the cost of raising a special needs child caused by that negligence be covered? Look into what good electric wheel chairs cost, and physio therapy etc. If the medical world doesn’t want to pay through the nose when they lose one of these cases, they could try not charging exorbitant fees for everything. Not to mention the fact that this little girl’s life was altered, it’s not like she caught a terrible virus and will get better.

We will only see a change in how things are done when there is true accountability. Accountability would solve most of our societal ills. Sadly we are terribly far from achieving that, but I suppose there’s hope as long as we keep trying to move in that direction.

Group Health Associates in Cincinnati had a policy in 1997 of trying to keep their c-section rates extremely low. They were part of a study, actually. Their c-section rates were far below the national average at that time. (You can look this up.) They had a policy of making women try a vbac (vaginal birth after caesarean) before doing a c-section even if there were problems or likely to be complications. Women were NOT given the choice of a c-section in cases like this one. There is no reason to believe thiis woman made the decision to do this against doctors’ orders. Dr. Frey, who ran the ob-gyn department, refused to allow women to elect for a c-section.

I live in Indiana and had that same thing happen to me in 1995. My daughter was 9lbs 8oz and I labored for 13 hours. We knew something was wrong in the beginning but they had to wait for an available anesthesiologist. (That’s what I got for living in a rural community.) They eventually had to do a C-section but it took 2 Dr’s to get on the table and pull her out of the birth canal. At the point when they finally could get me into the room to do the c-section my daughters heart rate was dropping horribly. And my body was shutting down from it happeneing. It was not a good situation. I feel bad for this woman and her child… I know exactly what it’s like. The one great thing that came out of my situation is my daughter is healthy. Other than a slight learning disability.

The doctors are not God, why is it their fault? Doctors are human. How can you blame someone who is trying to help your body deliver a baby? We all know that pregnancy is a dangerous, life-threateining condition for both the mother and her baby.

I had mentioned a similar situation with my daughter in 1995. But I have to add. There has been so many comments referring to how woman “used to die” during childbirth years ago when a situation like this would happen. That is silly. People died of diarrhea more often than in childbirth. So does that mean that today with medical advances people should be allowed to die of diarrhea? Just because “they use to”.

They tried to PUSH the kid through?…like they do the afterbirth? I have no problem with this lawsuit.

First off I would like to say that it’s hard to judge this case as we don’t have ALL the details, I’m sure. And as someone stated earlier I can certainly see both sides of the story. The woman could certainly have insisted that something be done, yet then again the doctor shouldn’t have allowed it to go that long. I know that with my son my wife pushed for 2 hours and my son’s head ws wedged in the canal. Her doctor told her he would allow her to push for one more hour, but in his professional opinion it would have done no good. My wife opted to have the c-section. Who know’s what would have happened in the case of this mother if she would have had another doctor. Unfortunatley hindsight doesn’t help this child.

“First thing we need to do in this country to fix our terrible healthcare is to limit arbitrary medical malpractice awards, to lets say $500,000″ — Michelle

Do you think for one minute malpractice insurance premiums would go down even one penny if you limit awards?…never forget the entire, overriding, driving, purpose of all insurance companies is to take as much money from the “customer” as possible and (hopefully) give none of it back.

Besides, how would you feel if you went in to have an apendix removed, and woke up after the surgury with both arms amputated?…guess the doctor should just laugh & say “darn!..guess we really messed THAT one up!..boy, is my face red!”…then throw a check at you for $500,000 and tell you “that should take care of it, now get dressed and check out…we need the room”.

This is just perfect.. A $20M verdict in Ohio and a $6M verdict in Mass. in the past week against professionals that are helpful to societies needs… When are the Lawyer Sharks and the naive jurists going to wake up to the fact that these verdicts against our professionals cost all of us more for their services. The fee’s to the Attorneys are the driving force here, and of course in the Bay State the accused had to probably face some left wing liberal jury. What a stacked deck he had. So what this verdict tells all of us is that if someone steps on your toes or your foot, you are entitled to damages !!! Nice message. And the verdict in Ohio, how about the many babies lives that are saved thru modern science and technology that would not be here otherwise.. Probably a few Lawyers were saved by a few smart and inventive Doctors. How come the people who lose in these trials don’t sue their attorneys for malpractice??? Aren’t attorneys supposed to win for us ??? I hope people start to see the patterns we are setting for our Country…

A host of opinions here based on insufficent facts. It seems more and more individuals just love to see doctors strung up. This obgyn’s fate was determined by 12 people who were not physicians. The plaintiffs attorney just gave a better show. For those who think the medical profession is crap then then next time you have an injury or get ill, take care of it yourself or go for ‘alternative’ healing, otherwise you are nothing but hippocrits.

I lifted the second pharse adobie nostalgia farsts. Once back through the vested sparchaklem, hansley hawkins made the gastly choice to bib over the lattice weaver soil. “Enough said” I thought. But once realizing it was a moot point, I sat beside myself and began to crochet.

My heart goes out to this woman and child, but childbirth is not without hazards. These are the stories that make doctors rush to do C-sections rather than risk a poor outcome and lawsuit and then they are criticized for doing too many C-sections. Was this woman hoping to deliver naturally and the doctor was trying to allow nature to take it’s course? Was the woman opposed to a C-section except as a last resort or was she begging the doctor to do one and it was refused to her? That information would make a difference to me if I were sitting on a jury trying to judge whether medical neglect was at play here. I couldn’t help but wonder what the full story was?

This article and all of those like it make me ill!! As a labor and delivery nurse who has personally worked with Dr Yang I am apalled. Dr Yang is an excellent doctor, and I would not say that about all the doctors I work with. In all my years with her I have never seen her do anything to harm a mom or baby.
As far as all the articles saying the baby was stuck in the birth canal for 13 hours that is rediculous! Her induction of labor was 13 hours. Anyone who looks at the pictures of the baby right after birth(which are on the web) Can see that the babies head is perfectly round. If it had been stuck in the birth canal it would be cone shaped! And a 13 hour labor is perfectly normal for a 1st time mom!
This woman was offered a csection and refused!!! It would be assult if Dr Yang had performed a csection with out consent.
This woman is ruining the name of a wonderful doctor abd it makes me ill!!!!
Heather Grow should be thankful that she has her daughter. If it weren’t for Dr Yang finally getting her to agree to a csection her baby probably would have been dead!

Tha saddest part is that I have worked with this wonderful doctor with great insincts about her job and now she will be second guessing herself and wondering if another uneducated and money hungry patient is going to sue!

This is the kind of doctor you get with universal health insurance.

Tater Tot, I agree 100% with you. I wouldn’t have delivered it either. It would have been, and turned out to be too risky. But hind sight is 20-20.

Western Medicine is not a requirement.

If you don’t like the system, don’t like the cost, don’t like the doctors then pick a different system.

In this case, the PATIENT chose to have a vaginal delivery. LABOR can easily go on for 13 hours. DOCTORS cannot force patients to have the procedure that is best for them.

If the doctor had forced the patient to have a c-section she would have been charged with a crime just like the doctor who held a construction accident trauma patient down to do a rectal exam for internal injuries.

Now if the doctor DID the C-section and the patient had a complication from that, she can sue saying she wanted a vaginal delivery and no one listened. If the trauma patient was allowed to refuse the rectal and had internal injuries, he could sue stating that he HAD A HEAD INJURY and why was anyone listening to him.

Which leads us to…it is so easy for LAWYERS to make money just playing the system. Whatever was done, if there is a complication, a death or an injury, it should obviously have been done a different way.

I would like to respond to the comment posted by Tiffany—– first of all a home birth is a very large risk, I would rather have a C-section than give birth at home.

—[And that is your choice although a misinformed one. Homebirth has been shown in NUMEROUS studies to just as safe, if not safer, than hospital birth for healthy, low-risk women. You and your baby are no more likely to die during a homebirth but you both ARE far less likely to be injured or have a negative outcome during a homebirth. Some of the risks of c-sections are immediate and some are long-term. It is major abdominal surgery with risks to mom and baby and shouldn't be undertaken lightly or for frivolous reasons.

Like I said earlier, c-sections can and DO save lives but like any other intervention into a natural process, if used indiscriminately they increase risk.]—

Second, does any ever stop to think of how much more time it takes a provider to do a C-Section so therefore why do you think that a Dr would rather do a C-section as opposed to a vaginal delivery

—[Actually, it takes a LOT less time and is more convenient. The average labor length is about 14 hours. You can schedule and perform a c-section in under an hour. Not to mention the disparity in cost. An uncomplicated vaginal delivery averages about $5,000. A c-section averages about $10,000. I'm NOT saying that doctors push c-sections for the money but it certainly isn't a deterrent. A c-section, according to jurors and the average population is considered a life-saving surgery---whether it was necessary or not---they don't undertand that it CAN increase risk and they're seen as SAFER than vaginal birth which they are NOT. There's a saying among OB's that the only c-section they'll get sued for is the one they don't do. Meaning, to a jury, as long as a c-section was performed, no matter the reason, it will be viewed as "they did everything they could." Whereas if something goes wrong during a vaginal birth, even if continuing is, based on all available evidence, the SAFEST course of action, it's viewed as being someone's fault. That's one reason I hate that cases like this are left up to a jury of people who have no knowledge about birth and what is safe/normal and what isn't.]—

Sometimes ordinary people think they are as smart as Drs and Nurse Midwives who have dedicated their lives to their education and careers.

—[Well, unfortunately the field of obstetrics has done it to themselves. They continue (and I'm NOT talking about this case as I have tentatively sided with the OB in this one based on the limited information available) to ignore their own trade-union's guidelines and continue with outdated practices that have either been proven to NOT improve outcomes (external fetal monitoring, ultrasound fetal weight estimates, etc.) or that blatantly harm mothers and babies (episiotomy, cytotec inductions, induction for big baby, etc.). The standard procedures in a hospital birth actually make it nearly impossible to have a safe, healthy, intervention free vaginal birth. If obstetrics, as a whole, was making decisons that WERE in the best interest of mothers and babies they would not continue to ignore the masses of research out there that show the harm they're causing and would actually practice evidence-based medicine. Until that day comes, I'll continue to take full responsibility for my health and the health of my children because I KNOW that I have our best interests as my number 1 priority.]—

“This is the kind of doctor you get with universal health insurance.” — Jan Wier

Universal health insurance?…in Ohio?…the US health system is far too archaic to have any type of true universal health insurance. We still depend on profit oriented private concerns to insure our sick & injured…private concerns so overwhelmed with the lust for dividends & bloated CEO compensation that they now attempt to soothsay out anyone who may actually need insurance in their future. We’re the only country left that still allows this cruel travesty to continue.

Also, I can’t find any news report on this incident that states the mother demanded a “natural” birth…could someone have simply stuck this into the forum?…and others simply accepted it as given, thus perpetuating it?…if anyone can find an article that states this as fact, please link.

I am the mother of a 27-year-old daughter who was stuck in my birth canal for 38 hours. She suffers from mild retardation, epilepsy, behavior problems, and mental illness. The doctors and nurses let me continue to lie there in labor all those hours and finally sent me to x-ray and said after many hours in hard labor that her head was shaped like a football from the contractions. Finally, after 38 hours, three nurses and the doctor with forceps pulled and pushed her out. It was the most horrible experience of my life. As parents, we have suffered so much watching our daughter deal with one illness and disappointment after another.