The birth of a baby should be met with joy and hope, not the pain and confusion of discovering that your child has suffered a birth injury. While birth injuries can arise even when a health care provider upholds the correct standards of care, infant injuries and deaths frequently occur due to medical errors. Recognizing common errors can help your family understand its rights.
Delayed Diagnoses During Pregnancy
A baby could suffer an injury even before birth if a dangerous medical condition is not detected, properly diagnosed and promptly treated in the mother. Many maternal conditions have the potential to result in harm to the infant, including maternal diabetes, preeclampsia, cardiac complications and infections. Maternal conditions should be detected and properly treated to protect the baby from harm as much as possible.
Misuse of Birth-Assistive Tools
A complicated pregnancy or long labor may require the use of birth-assistive tools and devices to help the baby exit the birth canal. Common examples are forceps and vacuum extractors. These tools must be used correctly by a trained and qualified medical practitioner, and only when doing so is appropriate based on the circumstances.
If a physician fails to use a birth-assistive tool properly, it could injure both child and mother. Examples include applying too much pressure against the infant’s skull or face with forceps, misplacing the suction cup of an extractor vacuum, and using excessive force. These medical errors can lead to facial nerve damage and paralysis, bleeding in the brain, cerebral palsy, and other serious conditions.
Failure to Detect Fetal Distress
A difficult birth may be unavoidable, but adverse consequences for mother and child can be kept to a minimum with proper monitoring, care and attention by health care providers. Failure to detect fetal distress can interfere with the infant’s development.
Ignored signs of distress, such as an increased infant heart rate, can impede emergency response and lead to serious harm, such as a lack of oxygen reaching the brain. This can result in hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy.
Improper Emergency Response
A doctor is not expected to prevent all pregnancy complications, but he or she does have a responsibility to react properly when a problem arises. Emergencies must be recognized immediately, or else the baby could suffer harmful consequences.
If a doctor fails to schedule a medically necessary emergency C-section, has a slow response to an emergency or the hospital is understaffed, these medical errors could prove fatal for mother or baby. A responsible physician will notice signs of a problem in a timely manner and immediately mobilize the correct remedy.
Excessive Force
While an infant may take some coercing to exit the birth canal during prolonged labor or a difficult birth, a doctor must use the proper standards of care to facilitate the birthing process. Incorrectly pulling or yanking on the baby could cause physical damage.
A common example is a brachial plexus injury, or harm to the bundle of nerves located in the shoulder, due to pulling on the baby’s arm. This is a common error when faced with shoulder dystocia, where the baby’s shoulders are lodged behind the mother’s pelvis. The use of excessive force could also lead to head, face and brain injuries.If your child suffered a birth injury that you believe was related to a medical error or malpractice, contact the Minneapolis birth injury lawyers at Goldenberg Lauricella, PLLC for a free consultation about your family’s rights. You may have grounds to file a claim against the health care provider in pursuit of justice and financial compensation.