$3,990,000 settlement for a 3-year-old boy because the doctors and nurses gave too much IV fluid and caused the child to have seizures and hemorrhages in the brain.

This child had expected a normal delivery and standard APGAR scores when he was born. The Apgar score is a scale from 1 to 10. The higher the score, the baby is assessed as doing better after birth. A score of 7, 8, or 9 is typical and is a sign that the newborn is in good health. A few hours later, the nurses detected he had low blood sugar. To correct this condition, the doctors put him on Intravenous fluids with dextrose (sugar). Unfortunately, because his sugar level never stabilized, the residents kept increasing the flow rate of the IV to get more dextrose into him. They should have just increased the concentration of dextrose in the IV rather than giving it faster. This newborn could not handle so much fluid in his system and couldn’t urinate enough to keep up with what they were putting in through the IV. As a result, his blood became diluted with too much fluid, and the sodium (salt) in his blood got diluted to a dangerously low level.

Warning signs that he was “waterlogged” and in a very dangerous position weren’t recognized, and this three-day-old child, without enough salt in his body to protect his organs, went into seizures and suffered bleeding in the brain, causing permanent brain damage.

The $3.8 million settlement was structured to provide funds to care for him as a child and provide him with a lifetime income as an adult. Birth Injuries can be complex, and it is hard to tell if you have a case and get the representation you deserve.