The birth of a new baby is a joyous moment for a family, but when the big moment arrives with emergency medical problems and the result is permanent injury to a child, a priceless, once-in-a-lifetime moment becomes forever tainted with trauma.
When parents face an uncertain future ahead for their child due to birth injuries, they want to know, “What are the chances of our child suffering permanent disabilities from a birth injury?”
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Birth Injuries That Cause Permanent Disabilities
What Is a Birth Injury?
A birth injury is not the same as a genetic condition. While a genetic condition is present from conception and often diagnosed in a baby while in utero, a birth injury happens to a healthy, normal baby when a medical emergency arises during the labor and delivery process. Birth injuries are most commonly diagnosed after a difficult delivery, such as one requiring forceps, vacuum suction, or an emergency C-section. When physical harm occurs to a baby due to an unfavorable natural process or a medical provider’s negligence during the birthing process, the doctors diagnose it as a birth injury.
The most common causes of birth injuries include oxygen deprivation due to cord problems, atypical fetal position—including breech birth and shoulder dystocia—prolonged labor, and maternal infection.
What Are the Most Common Signs of Birth Injuries?
While in some cases a child may show no immediate signs of a birth injury, most newborns are diagnosed soon after birth, especially after a difficult birth or when a mother or unborn baby experienced a medical emergency during delivery. Common signs of a birth-injured child include the following:
- Low oxygen levels and/or necessary resuscitation after delivery
- Difficulty feeding
- Limpness, floppiness, or stiffness
- Crying with an arched back
- Low APGAR score
- High-pitched crying
- Lethargic behavior
- Sensitivity to light
- Curled hands
- Weak reflexes
- Seizures
- Excessive drooling
- Paleness or blue-tinged skin
- Fussiness
- Swelling, bruising, or broken bones
In some cases, a child shows later signs of a birth injury, such as delayed milestones, speech delay, difficulty walking, blindness, or hearing problems.
What Types of Birth Injuries Cause Disability?
Some birth injuries, such as bruising from a forceps delivery, have no lingering adverse effects. Unfortunately, more serious birth injuries can cause permanent disability. The most common birth injuries with long-term impacts like disability or impairment include the following:
- Birth asphyxia
- Hypoxic-Ischemic-Encephalopathy (HIE), a condition resulting from a lack of oxygen and blood flow to the brain
- Spinal cord injuries
- Intracranial hemorrhage (brain bleed)
- Nerve injuries, such as those to the arm or hand, leading to Erb’s Palsy and other disabilities
- Intraventricular hemorrhage, or bleeding into the ventricles surrounded by the brain
- Fetal acidosis, or a higher than normal concentration of acid in the blood that is caused by oxygen deprivation
- Periventricular Leukomalacia, or the death of areas of white matter, leaving holes in the brain (more common in premature infants)
- Umbilical cord prolapse, which disrupts oxygen flow
- Traumatic birth injuries, such as fractures and nerve injuries, which are caused by physical force from forceps or a doctor’s manipulation during delivery
Most birth injuries that cause permanent disability are those that compromise the flow of oxygen to the brain during or immediately after the labor and delivery process. Spinal cord injuries are an exception in that they don’t typically involve a lack of oxygen flow, but are caused by physical trauma during delivery.
Premature babies face a higher risk of birth injuries due to underdeveloped respiratory and circulatory systems, which cause increased instances of oxygen deprivation to the brain.
What Types of Permanent Disabilities Result From Birth Injuries?
Unfortunately, serious birth injuries sometimes leave a child facing permanent disabilities with adverse impacts on their quality of life. Common permanent disabilities resulting from birth injuries include the following:
- Cerebral Palsy: A brain disorder, or group of disorders, that affects movement, coordination, balance, and speech, ranging from mild to severe
- Brain damage: Brain damage varies in severity, with mild to severe cognitive impairment
- Erb’s Palsy: Weakness or paralysis in the arm caused by nerve injury to the shoulder and neck during birth
- Paralysis due to spinal cord injuries: This can occur due to improper rotation or extraction methods
- Facial nerve paralysis: This happens when a baby’s face experiences intense pressure either from prolonged time in the birth canal or injury from forceps or vacuum extraction
- Seizure disorders: This can be a lifelong problem resulting from oxygen deprivation during birth
- Developmental delays caused by periventricular Leukomalacia, or holes or cysts in the brain resulting from birth injuries, especially in premature infants
- Horner’s Syndrome: a drooping eyelid, impaired vision in one eye, uneven eye size, or a sunken eye, often with a lack of ability to sweat or flush on the affected side of the face, caused by nerve damage in the brachial plexus nerve bundle in the neck during birth
If a parent suspects their child’s disability results from a previously undiagnosed birth injury, the child should undergo a medical assessment and imaging tests, along with a complete medical history with information about the child’s birth.
What to Do When a Child Suffers Disability Due to a Birth Injury
Learning that your child has suffered permanent disability due to a preventable birth injury is devastating, whether the diagnosis occurs soon after birth or later, when a child shows physical or cognitive delays and other symptoms. A disability alters a child’s quality of life and impacts the entire family. Although nothing can erase the injury, a successful birth injury claim can recover compensation for damages and open the door to the best medical care, rehabilitation therapies, special education, and other special requirements necessary to improve a child’s quality of life.
In the worst cases, birth injury can cause stillbirth or infant death during the days or months after the birth.
What Is a Birth Injury Claim for a Child With a Permanent Disability?
A birth injury claim is a specialized category of medical malpractice that holds a doctor, medical facility, care team, or nurse financially accountable for a preventable birth injury if their negligence caused the injury. Compensation in successful birth injury cases resulting in permanent disabilities typically comes from the at-fault provider’s medical malpractice insurance. If a child’s birth injury causes death, the child’s parents can recover compensation through a birth-injury wrongful death claim. Contact the Phoenix medical malpractice lawyers from Knapp & Roberts to schedule a free case consultation.