Danni cerebrali neonatali: la fallacia del post hoc ergo propter hoc

Abstract

Perinatal cerebral injury is an important subject in medical malpractice litigation. In most cases of claims for neonatal injuries the Italian Courts sentence the medical or hospital liability. The authors present a case of obstetrical negligence claim, in which parents alleged the severe mental retardation of their term born infant to negligence during labour. Although the most part of severe mental retardation is not the result of intrapartum injuries, the official expert call upon to judge established causation and identified the breach of duty in negligence in intermittent auscultation of foetal heart rate during labour. The authors underline that the research on the causation of neonatal cerebral injuries needs to focus more on antenatal events and reckon the causation not determinable in this case, lacking markers of the time of onset of brain injury, exclusion of other causes of mental retardation, and enough evidence to evaluate the use of foetal heart rate monitoring for assessment of its well being. The official expert’s conclusions are an example of post hoc fallacy.