Claims about medical malpractices resulting in neonatal and maternal impairment in Iran.

Background: Today even low incidence of complications for mothers or neonates during pregnancy, delivery or postpartum is unacceptable to the public and can result in claims because of greater expectation from patients and an increase in media coverage. The present study was conducted to investigate the reasons for medical malpractice claims on maternal and neonatal impairment, which are achieved in Iranian Legal Medicine Organization councils.

Materials And Methods: The present cross-sectional and retrospective study used convenience sampling to collect data of total claims from 31 provinces archived in the supreme council of the ILMO in 2 years. In this article, the medical malpractice claims on maternal and neonatal impairment during pregnancy, labour, delivery and early postpartum were reported. The data were collected through a validated researcher-made checklist and were analyzed in SPSS 16.

Results: Among total of 299 cases of impairment, cerebral palsy (33.34%), Erb's palsy due to shoulder dystocia (24.24%) and Down Syndrome (24.24%) were the main confirmed causes of malpractice for neonatal impairment and Retained Surgical Mass (20.5%), Salpingectomy and/or Oophorectomy Related to EP (17.2%), Hysterectomy (17.2%) and Episiotomy Related complication (17.2%) were the main confirmed causes of malpractice for maternal impairment.

Conclusion: Considering this fact that medical malpractice was confirmed in a large proportion of some preventable and important complications, therefore, results of this study can be used for developing educational programs for related healthcare providers to prevent those complications.