Daryl L. Zaslow of Eichen Crutchlow Zaslow & McElroy (Edison, Red Bank and Toms River), obtained a $1.9 million settlement on behalf of a 5 year old boy with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and cerebral palsy. The case arose out of a planned home birth performed by a certified mid-wife. Plaintiffs’ experts maintained that the Defendant mid-wife failed to appreciate a prolonged second stage of labor and that the mother needed to be transferred the nearest hospital once her second stage of labor approached 2 hours. Long second stages of labor are associated with increased fetal and maternal morbidity and mortality because fetal reserves may become low from the stress of prolonged labor and pushing. Plaintiffs maintained that long second stages of labor may be indicative of impending problems and the Defendant mid-wife failed to appreciate or react to the length of the second stage which was at minimum 2 hours and 47 minutes.
Plaintiffs’ experts opined that the delay in transferring the mother to the nearest hospital where an emergency cesarean section would have been performed resulted in the infant sustaining an acute asphyxic event in the minutes before his birth which left him with significant brain damage.