A neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is a specialized medical unit that provides critical care for vulnerable newborns. As in any other medical setting, negligence can occur in the NICU, and such negligence can cause serious injuries or complications.
Negligence in NICU care occurs when healthcare providers fail to perform their duties in accordance with the accepted standard of care. Common examples include delayed responses to distress, medication errors, and failure to monitor vital signs rigorously.
It can be hard to determine whether NICU staff conduct constitutes medical malpractice, and getting the advice and counsel of an experienced birth injury attorney is helpful.
What Is a NICU?
A NICU is a newborn nursery with specialized equipment and highly trained staff who care for preemies and other newborns needing significant medical attention. It is often referred to as the intensive care nursery, or “ICN.”
Patients in the NICU are the youngest and the tiniest in the hospital. New babies might be placed in the NICU if they have low birth weight, a heart condition, jaundice, or an infection. Twins and triplets tend to be born early with a low birth weight, and many need the care offered by the NICU.
Neonatal intensive care units usually have high-tech machines to monitor the health of the babies there. The monitors check the babies’ heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen levels. Many NICUs use ventilators to facilitate the babies’ breathing and CT and MRI machines to do imaging.
NICU Negligence
Medical care for newborns is highly specialized, and healthcare specialists working there have extensive medical training and experience. But doctors, nurses, and staff working with NICU babies can still make mistakes, mistakes that can seriously injure a new baby, sometimes causing permanent damage.
If a baby is injured because a medical provider does not meet the accepted standard of care, parents can bring legal action for negligence. In a malpractice case, the “standard of care” is the medical community’s consensus of the best practice in a particular situation.
Common Types of NICU Negligence
While proof of NICU negligence requires the assistance of an experienced medical malpractice attorney and medical experts, certain circumstances suggest that the medical standard of care was not met. These include delays in responding to a newborn’s distress, a failure to monitor the baby’s condition appropriately, rapid changes in a baby’s medical condition, lack of communication, and improper dosing of medications.
Delays in Responding to Distress
Whenever a patient is in distress, medical staff should attend to them promptly. This is even more important when the patient is a vulnerable baby, unable to communicate verbally and very new to the world. When medical staff fail to act promptly to care for a baby in distress, it suggests negligence.
Lack of Monitoring
Delays in responding to a NICU baby in distress can result from the staff’s failure to monitor the patient closely. All the high-tech monitoring equipment doesn’t save the day unless someone is keeping an eye on what is going on. Inadequate monitoring of a baby’s vital signs can lead to unnoticed complications. For example, improper oxygen levels for a baby on a ventilator can cause brain damage.
Rapid Changes in Condition
When a newborn is in the NICU, their condition should be stable. Sudden changes in their medical condition can be a sign of medical negligence. For example, if the baby’s oxygen saturation drops suddenly, or their heart rate drops precipitously, it may indicate negligence.
Poor Communication
There’s not one person looking after the babies in the NICU, but a whole medical staff. The babies’ recovery depends on staff talking to each other. Communication gaps can cause critical information to slip through the cracks. This is especially a risk during shift changes, but miscommunication among staff can happen at any time.
Medication Mistakes
Babies are so tiny that precision is critical when dosing medication. Giving a newborn too much or too little medication can cause serious medical issues.
Did the NICU Negligence Harm the Baby?
It’s important to get a child evaluated by an independent medical evaluation to determine the cause of neonatal issues. However, there are some signs parents can look out for that suggest that the baby was injured as a result of NICU negligence:
- A baby’s health suddenly declines in the NICU, and staff cannot explain what is going on.
- NICU staff give parents contradictory information about what happened to the child.
- A baby’s medical records contain inconsistencies.
- The child has been declared healthy and has left the NICU, but they do not meet developmental milestones.
If parents believe that their baby may have been a victim of malpractice, it can feel overwhelming. But they are not expected to prove negligence on their own. Reach out to an experienced birth injury attorney who has the knowledge and resources to help you determine whether NICU negligence occurred.
Nurenberg, Paris, Heller & McCarthy Can Help You Pursue Full and Fair Compensation
The Cleveland law firm of Nurenberg, Paris, Heller & McCarthy has experience representing Ohio residents in birth injury cases, including NICU negligence matters. We believe that no parents should have to take on the emotional and financial hardship of a birth injury alone — especially when it’s the result of someone else’s wrongdoing.
Our birth injury attorneys at Nurenberg, Paris, Heller & McCarthy are ready to help pursue all appropriate benefits for the child and their parents. Contact the Cleveland birth injury lawyers at our firm today for a free consultation.
