Illinois family awarded $28M in birth injury lawsuit

A Cook County jury has awarded $28 million to a family after their child suffered permanent brain damage during childbirth. The boy's mother, Teray Boyd, alleged that doctors ignored signs of fetal distress during labour and failed to perform an emergency C-section, resulting in severe injuries that will leave her son with lifelong disabilities, FOX 32 Chicago reports.A medical negligence lawsuitTeray Boyd’s attorney, Stephen Blecha of Coplan + Crane, said the pregnancy went smoothly, but everything changed when she went into labour in December 2023 at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. The complaint argues that when warning signs emerged during labour, the doctors should have performed an emergency C-section but fell below the accepted standard of care. It says the medical team failed to recognise abnormal fetal heart rate patterns and continued administering Pitocin, a drug used to induce labour, even as warning signs appeared. According to the complaint, no C-section was performed. The mother has sued five doctors who practised at the hospital. The hospital itself was not named as a defendant.The attorney stated that on 9 December, the fetal monitor showed that the baby was not receiving enough oxygenated blood. In his view, that reading should have led doctors to abandon the plan for a vaginal delivery.