Child Safety Blog

The Virginia State medical board has reprimanded two obstetricians for how they handled the births of infants that were severely and permanently injured during delivery.

The doctors in question are immune from lawsuit because of a 20-year-old no-fault Virginia program that provides medical care to injured children without requiring a trial while protecting obstetricians from legal action. A consequence of this program was that birth-injury cases would often go unscrutinized and negligent obstetricians could go unnoticed and without reprimand. That is why this an unusual event and the first of its kind in twenty years.

The reprimands do not impose monetary sanction on the doctors, nor do they limit the doctors' ability to practice.