Maternal infections are a recognized, often preventable cause of serious birth injury. When a doctor fails to screen for, identify, or treat an infection during pregnancy or labor, the consequences for a baby can be permanent: brain damage, cerebral palsy, hearing loss, or worse. These are not outcomes families should have to accept when standard medical care could have changed the course of events.
If your child was born with an infection-related injury and you’re wondering whether the medical team did everything they should have, you’re asking the right question. Beam Legal Team has spent more than 40 years pursuing justice for families in obstetrical malpractice and birth injury cases, with billions recovered in verdicts and settlements. Our firm focuses exclusively on birth injury and medical malpractice, not general personal injury.
Knowing how maternal infections harm newborns, which infections carry the highest risk, what negligence looks like in these cases, and what legal options your family may have is important if you suspect your baby was harmed during birth. Contact us to schedule a free consultation to discuss your case.
A maternal infection is a bacterial, viral, or parasitic infection that a mother carries during pregnancy, labor, or delivery. These infections can reach the baby in three ways: by crossing the placenta, by transmitting through the birth canal during vaginal delivery, or, in some cases, after birth through breast milk or close contact.
Once an infection reaches the baby, harm can occur through two pathways:
Both pathways can cause serious neurological damage. What makes these cases particularly hard for families is that a baby may appear healthy at birth, with the full extent of the injury only becoming apparent months or years later when developmental milestones aren’t reached.
Not all infections carry equal risk, and not all require the same screening or treatment. The following are among the most clinically significant and often closely associated with medical negligence.
GBS is a bacterial infection found in the vaginal or rectal area of roughly 1 in 4 pregnant women. Most carriers have no symptoms, which is precisely why screening matters. The standard of care requires GBS testing between 35 and 37 weeks of pregnancy. When the test is positive, IV antibiotics during labor can prevent transmission to the baby.
Failure to screen, failure to administer prophylactic antibiotics, or failure to act when GBS status is positive or unknown is one of the most clearly defined standard-of-care violations in obstetrics, and one of the more common bases for birth injury malpractice claims. Babies who contract GBS can develop sepsis, meningitis, or pneumonia within hours of birth.
Chorioamnionitis is an infection of the amniotic fluid and fetal membranes surrounding the baby. Clinically, chorioamnionitis is diagnosed when a mother presents with fever during labor (typically 100.4°F / 38°C or higher) alongside other indicators such as elevated white blood cell count, uterine tenderness, or foul-smelling amniotic fluid.
It can trigger preterm labor and cause systemic inflammation that disrupts oxygen flow to the baby’s brain, potentially leading to hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), cerebral palsy, or neonatal sepsis. Medical staff are trained to recognize these signs. Failure to respond promptly with antibiotics, delivery, or both is a fundamental breach of basic delivery protocol.
TORCH is the clinical acronym for a group of infections known to be particularly dangerous to the fetus: Toxoplasmosis, Rubella, Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Herpes simplex virus (HSV), and other infections, including syphilis, HIV, and Zika. Standard prenatal bloodwork includes screening for several of these, and the reason is straightforward: early detection allows for treatment or delivery management that can significantly reduce harm.
A few of the highest-risk infections in this group include:
The TORCH panel and other prenatal screenings exist because these infections are treatable, or at a minimum, manageable, when caught early. A missed diagnosis or a lab result that never prompted a follow-up conversation with the patient can become the center of a malpractice claim.
When an infection is missed, ignored, or undertreated, the range of potential injuries is wide and often severe. The most common outcomes:
Many of these conditions are not obvious at delivery. A baby may pass initial newborn assessments only to show signs of developmental delay at 12, 18, or 24 months. That delayed presentation is part of why Illinois provides an extended filing window for birth injury claims involving children, discussed below.
Not every birth injury connected to a maternal infection is the result of negligence. Some infections move faster than treatment can. The legal question is whether the medical team met the accepted standard of care for screening, diagnosis, and treatment, given what they knew, or should have known.
Common negligence scenarios in maternal infection cases:
In many states, filing a medical malpractice claim requires an affidavit of merit, a formal statement from a qualified health professional confirming that a medical standard of care was breached. Beam Legal Team collaborates with top obstetrical and neonatal experts nationwide to secure these critical evaluations and build strong cases.
Additionally, medical malpractice laws regarding financial recovery vary across the country; while some states cap non-economic damages, others allow families to recover the full, unlimited value of their losses. For a child facing a lifelong disability from a serious infection, securing a comprehensive recovery is vital to cover the true, long-term costs of specialized care, therapy, and support.
Each state enforces a strict time limit, known as a statute of limitations, for initiating medical malpractice lawsuits. If you fail to file before this window closes, you forfeit your right to seek compensation, regardless of how compelling your evidence may be.
While these cutoff dates differ significantly across the country, many jurisdictions offer extended timelines for cases involving minors, recognizing that the true severity of a childhood injury can take years to fully manifest. However, delaying action carries major risks. Over time, crucial medical documentation can vanish and witness recollections can deteriorate, making early legal evaluation essential.
Since the exact timeline is dictated by the specific location and date of the incident, your best course of action is to consult a birth injury attorney who can accurately determine your deadline.
If a maternal infection was negligently missed or mismanaged and your child was harmed as a result, you may be entitled to compensation for the full scope of that harm. Families in these cases can pursue:
Beam Legal Team has recovered billions for families in birth injury and medical malpractice cases. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome in your case.
Below are answers to questions families often have about maternal infections and birth injury claims.
Yes, if the doctor or medical team failed to meet the accepted standard of care for screening, diagnosing, or treating the infection. Not every infection-related birth injury is malpractice. Some move too fast for any intervention to help, but failures like not screening for GBS, missing chorioamnionitis during labor, or not ordering a C-section when active herpes lesions are present are well-established bases for malpractice claims.
Standard prenatal screening includes testing for Group B Streptococcus (at 35 to 37 weeks), syphilis, HIV, rubella immunity, hepatitis B, and, in some cases, CMV and herpes. The specific panel varies by practice guidelines and risk factors, but GBS screening and the standard prenatal infectious disease panel are part of routine obstetric care. Failure to perform or act on these tests can constitute negligence.
Chorioamnionitis infects the amniotic fluid and fetal membranes, triggering inflammation that can disrupt oxygen delivery to the baby’s brain and cause premature labor. The resulting oxygen deprivation during labor is a leading cause of HIE and cerebral palsy. Prompt treatment with antibiotics and, in many cases, delivery can reduce harm, which is why delayed recognition of the infection is a central issue in many malpractice claims.
The deadline for filing a birth injury lawsuit, known as the statute of limitations, depends heavily on the state where the medical malpractice occurred. While standard injury claims often have short windows, many states grant families an extended timeline when a child is harmed, sometimes allowing several years from the date of the injury or up until the child reaches a certain age to take action. Because these legal deadlines vary dramatically nationwide, consulting an experienced attorney as soon as possible is the best way to ensure you preserve vital medical evidence and protect your right to file a claim.
It can be. Identifying an infection is only the first step. The standard of care also requires that appropriate treatment be administered promptly. If a GBS-positive result was documented but antibiotics weren’t started before delivery, or a chorioamnionitis diagnosis led to an unnecessary delay in delivery, those treatment failures can serve as the basis for a malpractice claim, even though the infection itself was recognized.
Looking back on a pregnancy and wondering whether your child’s injury could have been prevented is one of the hardest things a parent can face. Maternal infections are a recognized medical risk with defined screening and treatment obligations. When those obligations aren’t met, families deserve answers.
Beam Legal Team has spent more than 40 years focused on obstetrical malpractice and birth injury litigation. This is not a general personal injury firm that occasionally handles birth cases. We pursue these cases because we understand the medicine, the standard-of-care requirements, and the long-term impact on families.
Contact the Beam Legal Team for a free consultation. Let us help you understand whether your family has a case. You pay nothing unless we get money for you.
