My sons fetal heart rate was not monitored, and I believe it resulted in a traumatic birth and his current health issues.

My son, who is now four years old, had a very traumatic birth due to careless medical professionals.  He was 41 1/2 weeks gestation.  My OB-GYN never did a stress test to see if my son could tolerate labor.  At about 30 weeks gestation I asked my OB's midwife a question about fetal heartrate because my son's heartrate would fluctuate dramamtically.  She tried to tell me it was normal but I told her that I read that what his heart was doing was not normal.  She told me "You read too much.  Go home, have a beer and relax."

When they induced me at 41 1/2 weeks the nurses were never able to get a "baseline" heart rate.  His heart rate was fluctuating more than normal.  Eventually this lead to an emergency c-section due to his heart ranging from 50 bpm to 190 bpm.  Upon delivery it was found that my son had a true knot in his cord.  The pH of his cord blood was in brain damage level.  They stated there may be brain damage - we would just have to wait and see.  At the age of 3 he was diagnosed with PDD-NOS.  Since then we have worked hard to help my son get "better" or as close to better as he is ever going to get - while wondering if his labor, being post due, etc could have been the cause.  I would hate for my OB to do this to anyone else.

Do we have any options at this point even though it happened so long ago?