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Maternity and Medical Negligence 8
Maternity and Medical Negligence 8
5-6 minutes
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
- Anaemia
- Pre-clampsia
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.
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.
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.