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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Kaiser Delays Cesarean,|Baby Dies, Mother Claims

BALTIMORE (CN) - A timely Cesarean section would have saved a baby's life, but Kaiser medical staff waited too long, his mother claims in Baltimore County Circuit Court.

Se-Lah Thornton sued two doctors, Christine Hyun Seon Sohn Woo and Bruce Gneshin; a certified nurse-midwife, Gia Fith; Greater Baltimore Medical Center; and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States, on her own behalf, as personal representative of the estate of the late Kingston Bradley, and [in trust for] Haywood Bradley, the baby's father. (Brackets added.)

Thornton claims that due to slow cervical dilation, her labor at Greater Baltimore Medical Center dragged on for 17 hours and a C-section should have been done at least two hours before it was. According to her complaint, monitoring showed fetal stress, eventually leading to fetal distress, after 14 hours of labor.

At that point, it was clear that she "was not going to normally progress through labor and, in fact, had suffered an arrest of labor. It is further alleged that the plaintiff was [past term], rendering her unborn infant more vulnerable to the effects of a protracted labor - thus requiring close monitoring and timely intervention, if necessary," the complaint states. (Brackets added.)

Yet, Thornton says, medical staff at Greater Baltimore Medical Center "ignored the ongoing findings which manifested shortly after 3:00 p.m., and failed to birth the baby via Cesarean section until 6:14 p.m. - more than 17 hours after her presentation to the hospital. Further, it is alleged that the baby was not born until at least two hours and 15 minutes after the standards of care required delivery," her complaint states.

Kingston Bradley was born blue, from oxygen deprivation, according to the complaint. At 8:50 p.m., "the infant's grandmother notified a nurse that the baby was not breathing. A code was called and the baby was resuscitated for approximately 25 minutes including intubation. Chest compressions were performed in addition to the utilization of epinephrine. The code was discontinued at 9:54 p.m., and the baby was tragically pronounced dead," the complaint states.

An autopsy revealed the caused of Kingston's death to be a pulmonary hemorrhage, which Thornton says was caused by his pre-natal oxygen deprivation, according to the complaint.

Kingston "suffered unending physical pain, emotional anguish as well as fear and anxiety prior to his death," Thornton says in her complaint.

The plaintiff is represented by Jonathan Schochor and James D. Cardea of Schochor, Federico and Stanton in Baltimore.

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