concernedhubby
New Member
My wife gave birth several days ago in Los Angeles to a healthy son. As part of our delivery request, we wanted our child to be placed on mom's chest immediately after birth, both for bonding reasons as well as the fact that nursing right after birth helps the uterus to contract thereby stemming blood flow from mom. This did not happen, for the following reason:
My wife started to hemorrhage, badly. I was aware of the delivery room suddenly being full of people, all concerned and whispering as the doc worked on my wife. Her bed was tilted back to lower her head, oxygen supplied, etc. I was handed our son and paced back and forth for about a half hour while they tried to get things under control, making bloody footprints across the floor as I paced.
They had given my wife an IV of Pitocin to help with the contractions, and as she delivered, they hooked up another bag of Pitocin. As soon as it hit my wife's veins, she said to the doctor 'this burns'. No one paid attention. Then a few moments later she said 'I don't feel well'. That also met with no response. She followed that with 'my tongue is going numb'. Again, no response.
Everyone leaped into action when her blood pressure plummeted and she started to pass out. That, and the hemorrhaging. At some point in the middle of all this, the anesthesiologist was called into the room. As they were frantically trying to figure out what was going on and why she was bleeding so much, he noticed that the IV was Magnesium Sulfate, and they were mistakenly pumping that into her system, thinking it was Pitocin. Mag Sulfate causes the uterus to relax, and is one of the leading causes of Postpartum hemorrhaging if not administered correctly. In this case, they were not even aware that it was being administered! After all, postpartum hemorrhaging is the number one cause of moms kicking the bucket during childbirth.
Long story short, my wife is fine. But the further we get away from the amazing experience of watching our son being born, the more upset we get about what could have happened, and what did happen.
The head of the department came the next day to apologize profusely and say that sweeping changes had been implemented as a result of this mistake. It turns out that they had recently switched medical suppliers, and both medicines were incompetently stored in the same cabinet. Ironically, we had heard our nurse complaining about this right after we were checked into the hospital that morning.
We're horrified. My father is a doctor, the least litigious man in the world... but he was apoplectic when he heard this. Does the fact that my wife has managed to recover completely (we hope - aside from being anemic) mean that there is no malpractice? Or negligence from the medical supply company? Should we pursue this?
Many thanks.
Thanks for your thoughts.
My wife started to hemorrhage, badly. I was aware of the delivery room suddenly being full of people, all concerned and whispering as the doc worked on my wife. Her bed was tilted back to lower her head, oxygen supplied, etc. I was handed our son and paced back and forth for about a half hour while they tried to get things under control, making bloody footprints across the floor as I paced.
They had given my wife an IV of Pitocin to help with the contractions, and as she delivered, they hooked up another bag of Pitocin. As soon as it hit my wife's veins, she said to the doctor 'this burns'. No one paid attention. Then a few moments later she said 'I don't feel well'. That also met with no response. She followed that with 'my tongue is going numb'. Again, no response.
Everyone leaped into action when her blood pressure plummeted and she started to pass out. That, and the hemorrhaging. At some point in the middle of all this, the anesthesiologist was called into the room. As they were frantically trying to figure out what was going on and why she was bleeding so much, he noticed that the IV was Magnesium Sulfate, and they were mistakenly pumping that into her system, thinking it was Pitocin. Mag Sulfate causes the uterus to relax, and is one of the leading causes of Postpartum hemorrhaging if not administered correctly. In this case, they were not even aware that it was being administered! After all, postpartum hemorrhaging is the number one cause of moms kicking the bucket during childbirth.
Long story short, my wife is fine. But the further we get away from the amazing experience of watching our son being born, the more upset we get about what could have happened, and what did happen.
The head of the department came the next day to apologize profusely and say that sweeping changes had been implemented as a result of this mistake. It turns out that they had recently switched medical suppliers, and both medicines were incompetently stored in the same cabinet. Ironically, we had heard our nurse complaining about this right after we were checked into the hospital that morning.
We're horrified. My father is a doctor, the least litigious man in the world... but he was apoplectic when he heard this. Does the fact that my wife has managed to recover completely (we hope - aside from being anemic) mean that there is no malpractice? Or negligence from the medical supply company? Should we pursue this?
Many thanks.
Thanks for your thoughts.
