Pregnancy is a beautiful and exciting period in a woman's life. It often marks the beginning of a new family. It can also feel overwhelming at times since many changes to a woman's body and lifestyle. One of the significant changes in lifestyle that many women experience is the increased use of healthcare services. From a medical perspective, pregnancy is an especially sensitive time in which doctors monitor their pregnant patients' health, which often includes performing different tests, prescribing other treatments to prevent or treat specific conditions in a mother, and may even include performing procedures in some circumstances. It can be natural to have any questions or concerns. This is especially true because misdiagnosis of a medical condition during pregnancy or delivery can significantly affect the mother and the child.
What is Prenatal care?
Prenatal care is the healthcare received by women when they are pregnant. It is most often provided by an obstetrician, gynecologists, family practitioners, and certified nurse-midwives. It is their responsibility to make sure that a pregnant woman and her baby are healthy, to detect any problems early, and ensure timely treatment if necessary.What is the Standard of Care?
Standard of Care is a legal term that means the degree of care and skill of the average healthcare provider. Essentially it means that all physicians with a certain level of training are expected to provide a similar type of care. When a healthcare provider deviates from providing healthcare services that are not the Standard of Care, this can result in a medical malpractice lawsuit. In a medical malpractice lawsuit that is filled in court over a healthcare provider's act or even a failure to act, the main question assessed by the legal teams is if there was medical negligence. In most cases, medical negligence is determined by evaluating if the healthcare provider provided healthcare services that meet each patient's standard of care. Unfortunately, not all pregnancies progress in a normal way and result in a healthy child's birth. The possibility of pregnancy complications for mother and child is present. In most instances, ' healthcare providers do an excellent job at preventing and treating such cases. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. In some cases, providers can make errors that lead to preventable harm to mothers and children. This is called pregnancy misdiagnosis. A few examples of common pregnancy misdiagnosis include:- Failure to diagnose ectopic pregnancy
- Preventable miscarriage
- Molar pregnancy
- Preeclampsia
- Cerebral Palsy
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