Pregnant Woman Experiences Eclampsia after Complaining of Headache, $3.75M Verdict

A Pennsylvania physician has been found negligent for failing to examine a pregnant woman whose complaint of a headache resulted in eclampsia that allegedly caused her infant to be born with cerebral palsy, according to a report from the December 2012 Medical Malpractice Verdicts, Settlements, and Experts. The plaintiff mother called the defendant obstetrician with complaints of a headache and was advised to take extra-strength Tylenol. The plaintiff claimed that she informed her obstetrician that she had experienced such excessive swelling and weight gain that her wedding rings needed to be cut off. Found unconscious the next morning on her kitchen floor, the plaintiff was treated at a hospital and underwent brain surgery and a cesarean delivery. The infant suffered a stroke that caused brain damage and resulted in a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. The plaintiff claimed that the mother should have been evaluated immediately and that the failure to examine her resulted in hypertension that restricted blood flow to the placenta, allegedly causing the fetus’s stroke.