Maternity and Medical Negligence
Lifestyle Changes
Maternity is often seen as an exciting and fulfilling experience. It’s the time when preparations for a new life are being made. The actual definition of maternity is from the time the woman becomes pregnant to the time shortly after the baby is born and in that time a lot happens and huge changes are made to all parts of life. Even from the planning stage of wanting a baby changes start to take place. For both the potential mother and father lifestyle modifications should happen so that conception and conceiving happens as healthy as possible. Even before the woman is pregnant it’s important for both the man and woman to ensure that they are both healthy in body and in mind so cutting back on unhealthy food, drinking less alcohol and trying to quit smoking if smokers, are seemed necessary. Once the women is pregnant the health changes needed go even further and guidelines about which food to eat and drinks to drink are there to ensure the pregnancy is as straight forward as possible.
Signs of Complications
The majority of pregnancies go without complications but it is important to always be aware of issues that may arise and know what to do in the event that they do. Complications can happen during the pregnancy, labour and birth stage and shortly after so it’s better to be mindful and prepared.
Some of the complications that can happen during pregnancy are;
- Ectopic pregnancy
- Miscarriage
- Low amniotic fluid
- Gestational diabetes
- Complications with foetus/baby
- Anaemia
- Low lying placenta
- Premature ruptured membranes
- Pre-clampsia
Some complications that may happen during labour and delivery;
- Premature delivery
- Breach presentation
- Umbilical cord prolapse or compression
- Amniotic fluid embolism
- Prolonged labour
- Postpartum Haemorrhage
- Retained placenta
- Shoulder dystocia
- Unborn baby in distress
Maternity complication can happen and most of the time it’s not as a result of anything that the pregnant women has done especially if she has carried out her pregnancy in a healthy manner. Instinct has an enormous part to play during maternity and knowing how the body can change, listening out for warning signs that things that are happening might not happen is the biggest advantage a pregnant women can have.
Medical Negligence
It is known that some complications can arise due to the fact that a medical staff has been negligent. Medical negligence is when a health care provider has given care that has been below the standard of expectation and that act or treatment has caused the patient to suffer and become a victim when the incident could have been avoided. In the incident where a negligent act takes place during pregnancy or delivery medical negligence claims can be made.
Examples of negligence
During the pregnancy part of maternity it has been known for symptoms of complications to go unnoticed. When a women is unfortunately experiencing an ectopic pregnancy the symptoms maybe mistaken for a miscarriage as they can carry similar signs e.g. abdominal pain and bleeding, so if a scan is not carried out there in no certain way of sometimes knowing the difference but if an ectopic pregnancy goes unnoticed it can cause severe effects. If the ectopic pregnancy is assumed to be a miscarriage because it was not investigated correctly this could be an act of negligence.
The main majority of labours and deliveries go as planned but there are few instances when mistakes are made and catastrophic consequences result. One of the most severe birth negligence’s that can take place is when the unborn baby is starved of oxygen maybe because the unborn baby was not being monitored correctly and result with the baby facing disabilities or it may even be fatal.
Medicalnegligenceassist.co.uk can provide expert guidance in assisting people who have experienced a birthing negligence as they have medical negligence experts that deal with such claims. Making a claim is not always an easy choice but if something as unfortunate as a birth negligence has occurred which has had life changing consequences help towards the change is needed.
Maternity and Pay
Part of preparing to become pregnant involves being aware of how the laws works when it comes to maternity leave and pay and a very useful site to use is the governments website, www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave.