Investigators Find Hospital Error Caused Mother’s Death in Brooklyn

Investigators with the New York State Department of Health have concluded that a troubling lapse by a surgical team at a hospital in Brooklyn resulted in the recent death of a 30-year-old mother who gave birth by cesarean section, according to a document obtained by The New York Times.

It is the second known instance in recent years in which state health authorities have blamed doctors for a maternal death at Woodhull Medical Center, long regarded as one of the weaker hospitals in the city’s large public hospital system.

The death of the woman, Christine Fields, in November, brought renewed attention to the racial disparities around childbirth in New York City. Ms. Fields was Black. In New York City, Black women are nine times more likely to die during childbirth than white women. That disparity is far sharper than the national one, and a range of public officials, from Mayor Eric Adams to Gov. Kathy Hochul, have cast about for ways to reduce it.

Few details about what caused Ms. Fields’s death have emerged. She had been in labor at Woodhull when a change in the fetal heart rate prompted alarm. Doctors decided that an emergency C-section was necessary.