In October, a birth injury malpractice verdict was awarded against a Minnesota midwife which demonstrates the very real dangers of failing to accurately estimate the fetal size and weight before delivery. The plaintiff, a mother from a small town in Eastern Minnesota, sued the certified nurse midwife from Allina Health negligently mishandling the delivery of her son in January 2016.
This was the plaintiff’s second child and throughout her pregnancy, she repeatedly told her midwife at Allina Health that the baby felt considerably larger with this pregnancy. The midwife reassured her that the baby was normal sized and estimated that he would be around 6 pounds at birth. Unfortunately for the midwife, this weight estimate turned out to be disastrously wrong.