• Some birth injuries are evident immediately after birth. Typical signs that a birth injury may have occurred include:
  • The color of the baby’s skin is pale or blue;
  • The baby is breathing slowly, has a slow heart rate, or requires resuscitation;
  • The baby is sluggish or lethargic;
  • The baby doesn’t express interest in feeding, or the baby has difficulty feeding;
  • There are odd movements in the baby’s face, arms, or legs – like seizures – or the baby favors one side of his or her body; or
  • The baby has low APGAR scores.
• But there are other birth injuries that don’t demonstrate symptoms until later on in your child’s life. If your child shows any of the following signs, he or she may have suffered a birth injury:
  • Problems with mobility;
  • Difficulty grabbing things;
  • Difficulty sitting upright;
  • Hearing and speaking issues;
  • Learning disabilities;
  • Behavioral problems;
  • Motor impairments;
  • Speech or language disorders;or
  • Seizures.

• Birth defects are rare in the United States – they occur during pregnancy as the child is developing. They may be caused by genetics or chromosome issues. Such birth defects include: cleft lip, Down Syndrome, and heart defects.  Sometimes though, birth defects are caused by outside factors, like pregnant women taking medication that’s been shown to cause birth defects. Some anti-depressant drugs and even certain birth control medications may cause birth defects. In these cases, the medication birth defects could have been prevented if the physician had not prescribed them in the first place during pregnancy.
• Birth injuries are traumatic events that happen to the baby and mother before, during, or just after a delivery. They are often caused by the negligence of medical professional.  In most cases, birth injuries are completely preventable.  The most commons types of preventable birth injuries arise from the following types of medical negligence:
  • Pulling or twisting the baby during delivery;
  • Improperly handling tools like forceps or a vaccum extraction tool;
  • Administering the wrong type or amount of medication to the mother during pregnancy and labor;
  • Failing to properly monitor the infant for distress, including failing to regularly monitor the fetal heartbeat; and
  • Failing to timely perform an emergency C-section (cesarean surgery).

• Here’s a list of the most common types of medical negligence. But be advised that negligence takes a variety of forms.  You need to contact a Minnesota birth injury lawyer to get an evaluation to understand whether your doctor or nurse committed malpractice.
  • Failing to monitor a child or mother’s vital signs during labor;
  • Failing to order and perform a C-section delivery in a timely manner;
  • Making surgical errors during a C-section;
  • Making errors in medical or anesthesia;
  • Improper use of forceps of vacuum extraction devices;
  • Failing to properly deal with shoulder dystocia, causing a brachial plexus injury (nerve damage to the shoulder, arm, or hand);
  • Failing to diagnose and treat a trapped or compressed umbilical cord;
  • Poor sanitation of equipment; and
  • Allowing labor to progress too long without intervention.

It is estimate that 7 out of every 1000 babies in the United States are born with a birth injury. This translates to approximately 28,000 babies born per year in the U.S. with a birth injury.  This breaks down to 2,333 babies per month, 538 per week, and 76 per day.

          Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) data reveals that:

• Approximately 157,700 potentially avoidable birth injuries are sustained by mothers and children during childbirth every year; and
• The highest birth injury rates involved vaginal births where birth-assistance tools like forceps or vacuums were used.

The most commons types and causes of birth injuries to mothers include:

• Vaginal tears during birth;
• Post-natal depression (PND) and Post-natal Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD);
• Post-partum Hemorrhage (PPH);
• Ruptured uterus; and
• Prolapsed uterus.

The likelihood of a birth injury increases when:

• The baby is too large for the mother’s pelvis;
• The baby’s positioning toward the birth canal is incorrect, like feet first;
• The doctor uses forceps or vacuum extractors during delivery;
• The baby is born premature (before 37 weeks);
• The doctor induces labor with drugs like Cyotec or Pitocin;
• A C-section delivery is necessary but isn’t performed in a timely manner;
• The doctor fails to diagnose medical conditions in the baby or mother; or
• The doctor doesn’t identify and respond to fetal distress during labor.

When doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals perform to the standard of care accepted in the community, that will usually prevent birth injuries.  If an injury does occur, you need to know what went wrong and why.

In many circumstances, especially for injuries to the brain, mistakes made by doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals during the delivery process are the cause of the birth injury.

Medical errors that can cause birth injuries include:

• Failing to identify and address issues and complications during pregnancy, such as infections, pregnancy-induced hypertension, or gestational diabetes;
• Prescribing a medication for the mother that carries dangerous side effects;
• Failing to respond quickly to bleeding, umbilical cord entanglement, or fetal distress;
• Misusing a vaccum extractor or forceps;
• Failing to properly monitor the mother’s and baby’s condition during labor and immediately after birth, including signs of fetal distress;
• Miscommunications or non-communications between different doctors and nurses; and
• Unreasonable delays in performing a C-section when problems arise.

Legal action allows you to get the truth about what happened to your child.  It also allows you to pursue full and fair compensation for the harm and damages inflicted by your provider’s negligence.  Finally, legal action can bring focus to long-standing problems in medical procedures and force hospitals and medical providers to make changes, to prevent something similar from happening to someone else.

 No. Of course there may be unforeseen and unforeseeable circumstances that lead to injury.  And we never want to sue a medical provider that provided the best and most reasonable standard of care to a patient.

But when medical professional depart from the recognized standard of care, and the baby is harmed as a result, we strive to hold them accountable, because that improves the standard of care that all of us receive when we need it most.

The first step to helping prevent birth injuries is good, solid, and sound prenatal care.  This means prenatal testing to assess the mother and baby’s health on a regular basis.  When abnormalities are detected early, it allows for management and treatment to avoid problems during labor.

Second, the obstetrician should closely monitor the mother and baby for signs of fetal distress, which indicates deprivation of oxygen to the fetus.     

Our Minnesota birth injury lawyers will listen to you and understand what happened.  Next, we’ll get all of our medical records and get them to our medical experts for evaluation, so we can understand whether your physician met the appropriate standard of care.  Sometimes, we’ll get multiple opinions on that.  If your doctor met the standard of care but your baby was still hurt, we’ll level with you and tell you the truth.

On the other hand, if your doctor didn’t meet the standard of care, then we’ll talk to you about pursuing a lawsuit, what that means, what your potential outcomes are, what the process is, and what our recommendation is.  If a doctor’s negligence causes harm to your baby, then you and your child should be compensated – in full – for that harm.  We will start a suit, conduct vigorous discovery, and bring your case in front a jury if the provider won’t do the right thing and settle for full and fair compensation.  See here for more about our process.