Louisville Birth Injury Attorneys

Your child coming into this world should be a cause for celebration. Tragically, each year, approximately 30,000 babies are born with injuries. If your child suffered oxygen deprivation or damage to nerves affecting motor function during birth, the damage is often irreversible, resulting in long-term disability.

At Wilt Injury Lawyers, our Louisville birth injury attorneys believe that no family should suffer for a physician’s wrongdoing. While the injury cannot be undone, compensation can help to ease the hardship you are facing.

Types of Birth Injuries

Parents rely on obstetricians and specialists to take appropriate action in medical emergencies. When a physician fails to monitor vital signs, diagnose a condition, or perform tasks without having proper training, the doctor can be held accountable for medical negligence.

A birth injury can result in any of the following conditions:

Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy is a neurological condition that is caused by damage to an infant’s brain, usually before birth. The most common type of brain injury that causes cerebral palsy is hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). HIE is a condition that causes an infant’s brain to be deprived of oxygen before, during, or after birth.

Cerebral palsy can be caused by several factors, such as:

• Premature birth
• Strokes affecting the brain
• Infections in the brain or spinal cord
• Forceps-assisted delivery or vacuum extraction delivery
• Meconium aspiration (when an infant breathes in a sticky substance, it’s bowel contents, before delivery)
• Lack of oxygen to the brain (if a physician fails to closely monitor a baby’s vital signs during labor, the deprivation of oxygen may go unnoticed)

Symptoms of cerebral palsy can range from irritability, lack of muscle tone, motor coordination, and reduced strength to delays in reaching developmental milestones.

Erb’s Palsy

The brachial plexus is a bundle of nerves that runs from the neck, connecting to the nerves in the arms. The brachial plexus is responsible for sending signals to the shoulders, arms, and hands. When a baby suffers damage to these nerves during delivery, this can result in Erb’s palsy.

Placing excessive traction on the baby’s head during delivery, especially if the baby is stuck during a shoulder dystocia, can tear these nerves. Symptoms of Erb’s palsy include:

• Inability to grasp objects
• Limp arm, wrist, or hand
• Numbness or tingling in the arm, hand, or shoulder
• Loss of feeling in one arm
• Partial or complete paralysis of one arm

Intraventricular Hemorrhage

This condition is caused by bleeding inside or around the ventricles of the brain. Although the cause is often unclear, it is common in the delivery of premature babies. A doctor will need to perform a physical examination and head ultrasound to diagnose the condition.

Symptoms of an intraventricular hemorrhage often include any of the following:

• Apnea: Irregular breathing
• Bradycardia: Slow heart rate
• Decreased reflexes
• Seizures
• Swelling of the fontanelles (soft spots) between the bones of the skull
• Lethargy or coma
• Cyanosis: Pale or blue coloring
• High-pitched cry

In severe cases, intraventricular hemorrhage can result in long-term brain damage, developmental delays, and death.