Birth Complications

Serving Hartford, Waterbury, New Haven and Surrounding Areas

In an ideal birth, the baby is positioned head first, and is not too large to pass through the mother’s cervix. The mother’s cervix dilates fully and without the use of any forceps, the baby emerges and promptly takes a breath, filling its little lungs with air for the first time. There may be some mucus to clear from its mouth and airway. When it cries, all present know that its lungs are working properly.

Complications are hard-to-solve problems, or even unsolvable problems which leave the baby or mother, or both, with an injury. Many births vary somewhat from the ideal, but most problems can be successfully dealt with. Birth complications arise in a minority of cases, but they have many potential causes.

Medical care during pregnancy
An obstetrician will usually have been seeing the mother throughout her pregnancy, and should have detected potential problems before the birth itself happens. Sometimes this monitoring is inadequate, so that an undiagnosed condition leads to a birth injury that should have been avoided. This is medical malpractice. If you or your child sustained an injury during birth or shortly after birth because of a medical mistake, you may be entitled to compensation.

Shoulder dystocia
When the baby is nearly born, ideally the shoulders will flex and move to easily follow the baby’s head through the narrow birth canal and out through the cervix. Sometimes, one of the baby’s shoulders becomes wedged against the mother’s pubic bone, so that the baby’s progress is stopped. Forceps are used to pull the baby and free its shoulder, but sometimes they are used too vigorously. Then the fragile neck becomes stretched, along with the nerves running from the neck through the shoulder and down the arm into the hand and fingers.

These nerves together are known as the brachial plexus and they cluster in the shoulder. When they’re injured, Erb’s palsy can result. The baby will then be impaired in finger movement on that side. In some cases the baby cannot move the arm or hand either. There may be loss of feeling.

Hypoxia
This term refers to lack of oxygen or a low supply of it. When the brain receives too little oxygen in the blood circulation, it can quickly become damaged. Some conditions of pregnancy can cause the baby to receive too little oxygen, putting it into what is known as fetal distress. When attending physicians and nurses do not notice fetal distress, or allow it to continue too long, the baby may have permanent brain damage. This would be medical negligence, and actionable in court.

Cerebral palsy
Hypoxia is often the cause of cerebral palsy, although overall, its many causes are not fully understood. It’s a general name for a variety of disorders in movement and posture of the body.

But we do know of many cerebral palsy risk factors which need to be monitored. If a mistake was made during your child’s delivery, it could cause cerebral palsy, and some of these mistakes are:

• Failing to see that the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck, interfering with blood flow to the brain
• Failing to plan a C-section when the baby is in fetal distress
• Failing to respond to changes in the baby’s heart rate
• Failing to deal with conditions in the mother such as high blood pressure or toxemia
• Failing to recognize and treat meningitis
• Improper use of forceps

Any of these mistakes could lead to brain damage for the baby. Cerebral palsy is a result of damage to the part of the brain which controls muscle tone.

If you suspect that your baby sustained birth damage because of medical negligence, the best thing to do is contact a medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible. To establish medical negligence as the cause of a birth injury, a great deal of time-consuming research must be done, and the sooner you can get it started the better.

Please call us, or send an email to arrange for your free initial consultation. One of our medical malpractice lawyers can assess your situation and start gathering information to build a case for you. We work on a contingency basis: no recovery, no fee, and serve all of the Hartford, Bridgeport and new Haven areas.

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