WRONGFUL BIRTH RESULTING IN SICKLE CELL ANEMIA
What Is Wrongful Birth?
When a woman is pregnant, she relies on her doctor to guide her through the pregnancy and monitor the well-being of her unborn child. In most cases, a baby is born healthy, thanks to conscientious doctors and prenatal testing. There are times, however, when a genetic or chromosomal abnormality in the unborn child is missed due to a doctor's negligence or medical laboratory's mistake. This mistake can result in a child being born with a devastating and debilitating condition or disease. Such an instance can be grounds for a wrongful birth case.
The Reasons for Wrongful Birth Cases
- Wrongful birth may be the result of a doctor’s failure to diagnose a genetic or chromosomal abnormality
- Wrongful births can also occur because of inadequate prenatal screening
- Wrongul birth can also be the result of a laboratory error
Types of Conditions That Are Grounds for Wrongful Birth
There are many inherited conditions and diseases that can be detected by prenatal testing or by genetic testing. Some of these conditions include:
- Cystic Fibrosis
- Down Syndrome
- Myotubular Myopathy
- Sickle Cell Anemia
- Spina Bifida
- Tay-Sachs Disease
- Thalassemia Major
What Is Sickle Cell Anemia?
Sickle cell anemia is an inherited blood disorder. People with sickle cell anemia have sickle-shaped red blood cells that don’t flow easily through their blood vessels, blocking blood from flowing to the limbs and organs. This can cause pain, serious infection, and organ damage. Sickle cell anemia is most common among African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Babies born with sickle cell anemia can have a variety of symptoms, ranging from mild to severe. They are anemic and they can have sickle cell crisis brought about when the cells clump together and block blood flow, causing acute or chronic pain. Depending on the severity of the condition, a person can have less than one painful crisis a year, or as many as 15. According to the National Institutes of Health, complications can include severe life-threatening infections, especially in infants and young children, delayed growth and puberty, and eye problems. Genetic testing can be done before conception to discover if you and your partner are carriers of the disease. And prenatal testing, either through amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS), can determine if your baby will have the disease or carry the trait. In addition, testing can be done at birth to determine whether a baby has sickle cell anemia. Sickle Cell Anemia and Wrongful Birth Cases If you were not informed of your child’s sickle cell anemia before his or her birth, you may have a wrongful birth case. An error may have occurred in one of several steps in the process: 1. Your doctor failed to read or interpret test results properly (e.g., AFV, ultrasound, amniocentesis) or did not advise you of your risks for giving birth to a baby with this condition. 2. The medical lab failed to perform the appropriate tests or failed to report the results. In both of these instances you were deprived of the choice to terminate the pregnancy or were unprepared to care for your disabled child. This may be grounds for a wrongful birth case. Contact O’Connor, Parsons & Lane for Help At O'Connor, Parsons & Lane, our attorneys have extensive experience dealing with wrongful birth cases. Our team of New Jersey attorneys can help you determine if you have a wrongful birth case. In one wrongful birth case we handled, a mother took the precaution of going to a specialist to determine if her fetus had a rare genetic disorder. The medical testing company failed to do the test and the doctor failed to notice the omission. The baby was born with myotubular myopathy. The jury awarded $28 million to the family, which enabled them to properly care for their sick child..
At O’Connor, Parsons & Lane, we know that no parent wants to make the heartbreaking decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy or bring a severely disabled child into the world. But parents do have the right to know the facts, and doctors and medical laboratory professionals have a responsibility to perform proper tests and inform the parents of the results.
If your baby was born with sickle cell anemia, talk to the New Jersey wrongful birth lawyers at O’Connor, Parsons & Lane. Contact us at 800-586-5817, 908-928-9200 or email us. The initial consultation is free.