Group B streptococcus (beta-hemolytic streptococcus, Group B Strep, or GBS) is a gram-positive coccal bacterium that has long been recognized as the leading cause of neonatal sepsis in the United States for the last forty years.
Neonatal infection occurs in as many as 1 in 3200 live births, causes serious morbidity and mortality, and leaves many survivors with permanent sequelae
GBS is a bacterial infection that can affect infants before and during labor and delivery. GBS is a frequent source of medical malpractice lawsuits because too often doctors and nurses miss the signs that the infant is suffering from a GBS infection that was passed to the child before or during childbirth.
More than 25% of women carry Group B Streptococcus (GBS), a bacteria that poses little risk of serious disease to the mother. Most Group B Strep carriers do not know they are carriers. So women can carry GBS in their vagina and pass on the infection to their newborn before or during birth.
Doctors Must Take GBS Seriously
Although more women have GBS than ever, it has long been a scourge on newborns long before the invention of the microscope and an understanding of bacteria as a cause of disease. GBS was called puerperal fever and it was a major killer of newborn infants.
Today, it continues to be a feared risk to infants although it is easily prevented proactively by IV antibiotics, usually penicillin, during labor and delivery. Before birth, giving the mother antibiotics is transfer to the baby via the placenta. If a patient does have a Group B sepsis infection, the sooner you treat the child, the more benefit they will receive from that treatment
Ultimately, GBS is an infection. It is imperative that any infection is recognized and properly treated because the active immunologic capacity of the neonate is compromised compared to that of older children and adults, and failure to do so can cause death and permanent injury.
Many doctors can get lax in part because most babies with GBS-positive moms do fantastic. So is the vast majority of cases, the delivery goes off without a hitch. But on the rare occasion when things do you wrong, the results a life-changing. Ten percent of infected babies develop a disability and five percent die.
The reality of these cases is that one missed test, one overlooked symptom, and a baby’s life—and a family’s lives—can be changed forever. Sometimes, tragedy happens and their is nothing anyone could have done. But far too often, the consequences are almost entirely preventable with a simple protocol of antibiotics during labor.
This is why the stakes are so high in GBS-related birth injury lawsuits. When healthcare providers drop the ball and fail to administer IV antibiotics in time, the results can be catastrophic: ten percent of infected newborns will develop long-term disabilities, and five percent won’t survive at all.
Doctors must treat every GBS-positive mother with the seriousness it warrants, regardless of how routine the delivery may seem. The difference between a healthy baby and a devastated family can be as simple as remembering to administer a dose of penicillin. For parents facing the aftermath of a missed GBS diagnosis, the legal system offers a chance to hold providers accountable—not just for their own justice, but as a wake-up call to all healthcare professionals to never take this infection lightly.
Missed Opportunities and Tragic Outcomes
For years, the medical community’s approach to managing GBS was inconsistent at best, and negligent at worst. Many obstetricians failed to test for GBS or provide appropriate treatment, leaving newborns unnecessarily vulnerable.
Before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released comprehensive guidelines in 1996, some doctors even argued that they had no duty to screen for GBS—an attitude that undoubtedly contributed to tragic, avoidable outcomes. These guidelines, later endorsed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), finally set a clearer standard of care, but for many families, the damage was already done.
Preventing GBS transmission is not rocket science. It’s as simple as screening expectant mothers between 35 and 37 weeks of pregnancy and administering antibiotics during labor if needed. This screening helps identify if the mother is carrying GBS, so doctors can take steps to prevent the baby from becoming infected. If a pregnant woman tests positive, she is typically given antibiotics through an IV during labor to lower the risk of passing the bacteria to her baby. This standard of care can slash the risk of GBS infection in newborns by up to 30 times. Digest that: 30 times.
Yet, some physicians still fail to follow these straightforward recommendations, which can lead to tragic outcomes that should never have occurred in the first place. When doctors don’t bother to take these basic precautions, families are left devastated, facing a future forever altered by something that was entirely preventable.
Legal Responsibility: When Standards Are Not Met
The rise of GBS-related medical malpractice lawsuits reflects the legal accountability of doctors who ignore these established standards. Physicians who fail to inform women about GBS risks or don’t offer testing are failing their duty of care. Legal theories like “informed consent” come into play when a mother isn’t given the opportunity to make a fully informed decision about her care. And when a doctor’s negligence robs a family of their chance to avoid a life-altering injury or death, they should be held responsible for that lost opportunity.
The Current Standard of Care and Ongoing Failures
Today, the CDC’s guidelines have become the cornerstone of GBS management. Most obstetricians now wisely offer testing in the third trimester and recommend antibiotics when needed. While this shift has improved outcomes, there are still doctors who don’t follow these basic protocols. This exposes them to legal repercussions when things go wrong, and, more importantly, it puts children at risk.
Preventing GBS infection is about vigilance and responsibility. Doctors and hospitals need to be held accountable when they cut corners, fail to test, or neglect to treat. Every missed opportunity to protect a newborn from this preventable infection is another case of medical negligence that cannot be ignored. These lawsuits are not just about seeking compensation—they’re about sending a clear message to the medical community.
Group B Infection Settlements and Verdicts
Below are stories of GBS birth injury cases around the country and the ultimate settlement or verdict in that case. It is impossible to ascertain the settlement value of these cases with statistics or case studies like this because every case is so very different.
- 2020: Virginia $1,550,000 Settlement: A 3-month-old infant was taken to his pediatrician’s office with a 103.9-degree fever, high heart rate, and other concerning symptoms. The pediatrician, suspecting a serious infection, immediately referred him to a nearby emergency department. At the hospital, evaluations confirmed severe infection indicators, but the emergency department and pediatric teams delayed performing a lumbar puncture and administering antibiotics despite meningitis and sepsis being on the differential diagnosis. Again, any delay can be fatal. In this case, over 11 hours passed before the lumbar puncture was conducted, and antibiotics were not started until 12 hours after arrival. The baby’s condition worsened overnight, and he was found deceased in his hospital crib the following morning.
- 2018: Illinois $9,000,000 Settlement: Doctors at OB/GYN practice fail to give standard Group B Strep screening tests during week 35-37 of pregnancy as part of their routine prenatal care. One of their pregnant patients is carrying GBS and it goes undetected because no prenatal screening is performed. She passes the GBS infection onto her baby when she is born. The infection causes extensive damage to the baby’s brain leaving her with major cognitive impairments such that she will never progress past a 1st-grade level and require lifelong supervision. Mother sues doctors on behalf of baby alleging negligence per se based on their failure to comply with ACOG standards which require routine GBS screening at 35 weeks regardless of risk factors. Case settles out of court for $9 million.
- 2018: Illinois $2,000,000 Settlement: A pregnant woman at Robbins Health Center had a Group B strep culture taken on December 26, 2012. Clinic policy required the culture to be submitted for testing within 24 to 48 hours, but the pathology department did not receive it until January 4, 2013, more than a week later. Clinic personnel allegedly falsified the culture’s collection date to appear compliant with protocol. As a result, the infection went undiagnosed and untreated. When the baby was born, she suffered from severe birth injuries, including septicemia, meningitis, retinal hemorrhage, and optic nerve damage due to the untreated Group B strep infection. The plaintiff alleged that timely testing would have allowed for preventive antibiotic treatment. The case resolved with a $2,000,000 settlement before trial.
- 2016: Washington, $5,500,000 Settlement. Mother is admitted to the hospital in labor. The labor is complicated slow progress, maternal fever, and Category III fetal heart strips. The boy is delivered by C-section. He needs to be resuscitated and is sent to the NICU. He is diagnosed with HIE. Cultures from the placenta found GBS. Plaintiff’s claim the infection should have been caught soon and the boy should have been delivered earlier.
- 2016: Nevada, $7,500,000 Settlement. Mother known to be Group B Strep positive is under the care of a midwife to deliver her son at home but is transferred to the hospital when the baby has tachycardia and the mother has a fever, all telltale signs of an infection. The baby is born by C-section after prolonged fetal heart rate decelerations and approximately 30 minutes after the C-section order (10 minutes should be the outer limit). The child does not receive resuscitation until about 20 minutes after delivery. The child suffered hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy with a related seizure disorder during his birth. The lawsuit alleged the OB violated the standard of care by failing to order an emergency C-section and by failing to give the mother antibiotics.
- 2010, Illinois, $29 Million Verdict. The mother goes to the hospital after her water breaks. The mom had GBS but does not get antibiotics. The GBS infection spreads to the child’s brain, causing spastic quadriplegia and cerebral palsy. Plaintiffs’ lawsuit alleged that the mom’s Group B Strep infection and the baby’s symptoms mandated antibiotics that would have prevented the brain injury.
More Information on GBS
- Group B Strep (GBS) is a common bacterium present in about 25% of all healthy women. GBS bacteria are typically harmless to adults, but pregnant women can pass on the bacteria to their unborn child, causing serious illness. Because GBS bacteria are so common, all pregnant women should be tested for GBS at some point between 35-37 weeks of every pregnancy. If the test is positive, IV antibiotics should be administered to the mother during labor and delivery.
- Only one out of every 200 babies born to mothers with GBS will become infected, experiencing signs and symptoms including breathing problems, fever, difficulty feeding, lethargy, and/or irritability. Mothers who have early labor or rupture of membranes, fever during labor, or a urinary tract infection during pregnancy are at greater risk of delivering a baby with GBS.
- Both the OB/GYNs and the emergency room physicians in this claim made significant errors that led to the baby’s injury. It is not clear whether or not the mother was tested for GBS during her pregnancy, but either way, her OB/GYN definitely did not provide antibiotics during labor and delivery. The risk of passing GBS bacteria on to a newborn decrease from one in 200 to one in 4,000 if antibiotics are administered. Then, the ER doctors failed to recognize the baby’s symptoms and diagnose her with GBS in a timely manner, exacerbating the effects of the infection.
- When a patient’s GBS status is unknown, GBS antibiotic prophylaxis prior to and during labor and delivery is not required by the standard of care. The exception to this rule is when (1) a vaginal delivery is expected, and (2) childbirth is expected to occur prematurely (less than 37 weeks), there was prolonged rupture of amniotic membranes, the mother had an intrapartum fever over 100.4 or greater, the mother had a previous infant with GBS, or intrapartum NAAT results were positive for GBS.
- Maryland birth injury lawyers do not see a lot of GBS strep B cases. They are pretty rare. But they typically have very large trial and settlement values because the injuries are often catastrophic.
Getting a GBS Birth Injury Attorney
Infections like GBS can infection, meningitis, and lifelong injuries for innocent victims. If you believe that you or your child may have had poor care during childbirth, call our Maryland birth injury lawyers at 800-553-8082 or get a free online consultation. Our birth injury law firm handles cases not only in Maryland and Washington, D.C. but throughout the country.