Baltimore County Jury Awards $2 Million After OB-GYN Missed Premature Gestation, Withheld Steroids, and Infant Developed Cerebral Palsy

On April 18, 2006, Fatima Abid's water broke. She was 33 weeks pregnant. When she was admitted to St. Joseph Medical Center the following morning, her care team believed she was past 36 weeks and approaching full term. That belief was wrong, and the consequences were severe.

An ultrasound performed 12 days earlier had clearly documented the pregnancy at 33 weeks. Dr. Meera A. Rawtani, the treating obstetrician, did not act on that finding or inform the family that a gestational miscalculation might affect delivery decisions. Because the staff believed Fatima was near term, they did not administer corticosteroids, a standard intervention given when a preterm delivery is anticipated that accelerates lung maturation in the fetus. When Maria was born, her lungs were underdeveloped. She was transferred immediately to the neonatal intensive care unit, where a neonatologist confirmed delivery had occurred at 33 weeks. A delivery-room physician later contacted the NICU to report that Maria had been 'mistakenly delivered prematurely.'

Maria suffered oxygen deprivation from her underdeveloped lungs and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Her parents, Muhammad and Fatima Abid of Woodlawn, filed suit in Baltimore County Circuit Court in November 2013, naming both Dr. Rawtani and St. Joseph Medical Center as defendants. Plaintiffs alleged that the hospital's own records had been altered after the fact to misrepresent Maria's developmental status at birth.

H. Briggs Bedigian and Alicia J. Gipe of Gilman and Bedigian LLC tried the case before Judge Michael J. Finifter over ten days. A jury of six women deliberated for roughly two hours before returning a verdict in the Abid family's favor. The jury found Dr. Rawtani liable and awarded $2 million: $1.5 million for future medical expenses, $150,000 for past medical expenses, and $350,000 in non-economic damages. The jury found in favor of St. Joseph Medical Center on the claims brought against the hospital.