| By :
Wendy Moyer
What is more exciting than bringing a newborn into the world? After all, the future of mankind really does depend on our children and our children's children. Unfortunately, labor as well as delivery can be a very complicated and unpredictable process. When an expectant mother goes through the birth process she trusts that her doctors and other medical professionals will maintain the highest of standards as they help to guide her through the childbirth process. Doctors have to be able to make instantaneous decisions in order to protect the safety and health of the newborn and its mother. When a trained physician or other medical professional fails to observe any warning signs - or when they deviate from accepted medical standards of care - children are often unnecessarily harmed. Birth injuries can range from those that will heal themselves and have no long term adverse affects to extremely serious injuries that can affect a child's brain. If, during delivery, the baby lacks oxygen for one reason or another, or if there is any bleeding within the baby's brain or skull, then serious birth injuries are often the result. And many of these birth injuries cause irreversible brain damage. Oxygen shortages can be caused by a number of different things. The baby may be in an unusual birth position. Or the placenta may prematurely separate from the wall of the uterus. There could also be problems with circulation within the umbilical cord. In addition, labor may be either too short or too long. Most of the medical malpractice claims that are based on injuries due to a shortage of oxygen allege that the medical professionals involved with the birthing process failed to recognize, anticipate, or react to any of these potentially dangerous scenarios. Other factors that can lead to birth injuries include the failure to correctly anticipate the baby's size, the use of excessive force during the delivery, not ordering a C-section when necessary, and others. Roughly nine and one half percent of all the medical malpractice lawsuits involve either the failure to properly diagnose problems either before or while they are happening, or the misdiagnosis of problems related to child birth. Two types of cases that are predominate in birth injury malpractice lawsuits involve either Cerebral Palsy (CP) or Erb's Palsy (sometimes called Brachial Plexus palsy). Because medical professionals have accepted the responsibility of taking good care of both the mother as well as the newborn child, if there has been a breach in their actions that caused injury to either they should be held accountable.
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