Common birth injuries: Did your child suffer from one of these?

When you spend nine months waiting for your child to come, it can be devastating to see your baby suffering from a birth injury. You only want the best and easiest life for your child, so you will no doubt take every step available to ensure your child receives the most advanced medical care and has the best chance for recovery.

Medical care, however, can be expensive for a birth injured child, which will only add to your worries and frustrations as a parent. This is where a personal injury claim may be able to help.

Birth injuries that may have resulted from doctors’ errors

If your child suffered from one of the following birth injuries, you may want to investigate whether sufficient facts and evidence exist to pursue a claim for financial compensation.

Brachial palsy: This category of injury includes Klumpke’s palsy and Erb’s palsy. It’s caused when a baby injures the nerves that control his or her arms and hands, resulting in permanent or temporary paralysis of the arms and hands. This often happens during delivery if the shoulders of the infant get caught in the mother’s pelvic bone, resulting in shoulder dystocia. The condition could be the fault of the physician if he or she pulls on the baby in the wrong way.

Facial paralysis: If the face has too much pressure put on it during birth, a facial paralysis could result. The improper use of forceps and vacuum extraction by a negligent physician can cause these injuries

Brain injuries: Physicians need to monitor the condition of infants during pregnancy and during delivery to ensure they’re getting enough oxygen. If the infant stops getting oxygen — perhaps due to a prolapsed umbilical cord — he or she could suffer serious brain damage that results in paralysis, cerebral palsy and chronic seizures.

Whose fault was your child’s birth injury?

Your child may have suffered one of the above birth injuries naturally, or it may have been preventable had your physician acted appropriately given the circumstances. As such, it’s important for parents of birth injured children to investigate the signs that physician error caused their children’s injuries. Pinpointing negligence in these cases could mean the difference between parents getting money to pay for their child’s medical care and getting no financial assistance at all.