Birth Injury Blog

Archive for June, 2009

Congenital facial paralysis is one of the uncommon but very serious birth injuries. It occur 0.23-1.8% of new born children. Its treatment depends up on the etiology of paralysis and physical examination. This problem is very serious and can lead to several other problems for infant. Some of its effects include difficulty in eye closure and orbicularis oris. It also depresses labii inferioris which makes feeding difficult for the infant. This paralysis can affect inner body parts and cause abnormalities in inner ear and vocal cord.

Facial paralysis is very serious problem as it is associated with traumatic and development causes. It affects the further growth of body and effects brain and body. The main reason for facial paralysis is pressure on infants face during the birthing process. It narrows the vertical segment of facial canal and can also lead to trauma. It compresses the soft tissues and causes facial neurapraxia.

Facial paralysis can lead to number of defects. It causes Mobius syndrome which affects cranial nerves and extraocular nerves. The damaged nerves can lead to several problems like speech loss, difficulty in eating etc. This also led to disorders known as oculoauriculovertebral disorders, which causes irregular growth of bones at facial canal. The major disorder for congenital paralysis is CHARGE syndrome, which is means
C – colobomata; which is an abnormality in eye. It effects eye sight and can also lead to vision loss
H – Heart disease; this includes blockage or arteries and problem in pumping of blood
A – Atresia of choanae; It blocks the nasal passage and causes breathing problem for infants
R – Retarded growth; Infant’s mental and physical growth get affected.
G – Genital Hypoplasia; Disorders of genitals is called genital hypoplasia
E – Ear abnormalities. Read the rest of this entry »

An incident takes place when a baby suffers some physical injury at a time of birth process, that incident is called Birth Injury. Sometimes the size and position of the baby is main cause of the birth injury. Baby’s weighing more then 4000gms (8 pounds or 13 ounces) may get injury during birth process because it is difficult to deliver by the mother. Pre-maturity is also a big factor to affect birth process, Baby coming before the actual times are very prone to birth injuries.7iv2c3jny8

Babies are very soft and cannot withstand with pressures. Sometimes mother’s pelvis can also cause birth injury. If pelvis is not compatible to the size of baby, it affects the baby and this injury is called cephalopelvic disproportion. Sometimes baby can suffer some abnormal birth conditions like coming by buttocks first that may be very risky as well as baby survival condition may be very less. Some common causes are being explained below:

* Caput succedaneum- It is a kind of serious swelling on soft tissue of baby’s forehead that develops when baby travels in birth canal. This disappears within a few days. Babies born by vacuum extraction are very prone to this injury.

*  Cephalohematoma- In this case, baby’s body gets squeezed and bleeding takes place below the cranial bones. It appears after some hours and last up to two weeks to three months depending upon the size of the area. This result in large breakdown of Red Cells and may cause jaundice in new born baby. Read the rest of this entry »

Giving birth is supposed to be one of the most exciting and amazing times in your life. This dream has been shattered for thousands of women who have had their newborn become injured in the process of giving birth. Doctors have been known to be careless when delivering newborn babies. There are dozens of different injuries newborns have sustained because of the doctor being careless. Don’t let this continue to happen, contact your local Pennsylvania birth injury lawyer today and file a class action lawsuit or a personal lawsuit.
Some of the traumatizing injuries that your newborn may have endured may have semi-permanent effects on the newborn. One of the most common injuries for newborns in bruising on their bodies and heads as a result of the forceps used by the doctor during birth. In some cases newborns heads have been held so tightly that the forceps may cause the skull to crack or fracture. In some cases the fractures have been known to be so extreme that they have required reconstructive surgery in order to make the skull look normal again.

Another injury that a newborn may sustain from the use of forceps during birth is facial paralysis. The careless use of forceps can cause serious injury to the babies’ facial nerves. The nerves in the newborns face can be so damaged that the paralysis in their face can take anywhere from minutes to weeks to clear up, but there have been some instances where the nerve injury has been so severe that surgery was necessary in order to reconstruct the damaged nerves. A Pennsylvania birth injury lawyer can help you get the money you owe to doctors as a result of reconstruction for your infant. We know what it is like for you to have to go through something traumatizing and to have to pay for a mistake of others shouldn’t be part of the burden. Read the rest of this entry »

Cerebral palsy could be diagnosed in different signs depending on the age of your baby. Getting difficult on breathing, suckling and evacuating the bowels could be the signs of cerebral palsy for your newborn infant. for infants, unussual reflexes may be occured. In a growing of your infant, the signs of cerebral palsy presence are the using of one part of the body over the other and facilitating certain movement over others. Another signs of cerebral palsy include distress on facial expressions, responding the sounds and movements, roll over, crawl, walk, smile and other. they also can not play with their toys.

Different types of cerebral palsy have different signs. Spastic diplegics are indicated with “scissors” gait of foot. spastic hemiparesis are signed with uncontrol movement. athetoid cerebral palsy are signed with grimacing, drooling and slow writhing movement. Ataxic cerebral palsy is occured due to unsteady motoric when perform movements.

See your physician immediatelly when you find something wrong with your infant such as unussual movement or posture and delaying of development of your child.

We know that everything could be happen on medical healthcare services, even they have high technology. Any medical procedures failure or misdiagnose conditions may be happened during medical process. The physician or the people who involved with healthcare services have responsible to their patients, that’s way their duty is limited by a “duty of care”.

If yourself or your family get experience of misdiagnose or fail of procedures that brings any injury or even death, you can make a claim for clinical negligence compensation.

Do you the parent of a child with birth injury that might be suspected clinical negligence? If yes, you may think to raise this case as a legal case.

Birth injury is the impairment of body function or structure due to adverse influences to which the infant has been subjected at birth such as nerve damage, broken bones and brain injury. Birth injury not only for the infant but also the mother. Read the rest of this entry »