The human body being deprived of oxygen for any length of time is a grave danger that can cause significant injury and death, no matter the person’s age. Babies still in the womb or who have just been born are entirely dependent on the delivering doctor to make the right decisions based on his or her extensive medical training.
All parents want the birth of their children to proceed without issue, but as we know, medical procedures can sometimes go awry, leaving patients permanently injured, sometimes catastrophically. Most doctors strive to do whatever they can to deliver babies safely, but every so often, a doctor acts negligently and directly causes a baby to suffer a birth injury.
Latona Law has spent more than three decades fighting for justice for families whose babies sustained birth injuries due to being deprived of oxygen. Any doctor whose negligence leads to such an outcome must be held accountable, and the family that has suffered must be able to recover financial damages.
If the idea of oxygen deprivation and birth injuries is unfamiliar to you, allow us to do our part to educate you.
Causes of Oxygen Deprivation at Birth
As we mentioned, some births proceed with no problems at all. In other cases, complications arise that are quickly addressed and mitigated by doctors, midwives, and other medical professionals assisting with the delivery. And, in some extreme cases, these doctors and others become aware of such complications and fail to act appropriately to overcome them.
For instance, here are some common causes of oxygen deprivation at birth that generally require immediate attention by the attending doctor:
- Trauma to the baby while still in the womb
- High or low blood pressure in the mother
- The placenta separating from the uterus before it should
- Prolapsed umbilical cord
- Umbilical cord wrapped around the baby’s neck
- The baby’s airway constricting
- Shoulder dystocia, or the baby’s anterior shoulder getting caught while being delivered
- Infection in the mother or baby
- The mother not having enough oxygen in her blood
These kinds of problems, and others, can arise during a birth no matter how many people are helping to deliver. Negligence comes in when doctors and others notice that the baby is being deprived of oxygen and do not act responsibly or quickly enough to alleviate the problem. Doctors could also be considered negligent if they had failed to take into account the health of the mother at the start of pregnancy, which, if they had, might have alerted them that delivery complications could appear.
Effects of Oxygen Deprivation at Birth
When we speak of birth injuries caused by oxygen deprivation, everything comes down to timing. The longer the infant is without oxygen, the more severe the injury is likely to be. Some birth injuries that can occur as the result of oxygen deprivation include:
- Cerebral palsy
- Attention-deficit disorder
- Autism
- Seizures
- Behavioral problems
- Developmental disabilities
- Various other long-term injuries to the brain or heart
Aside from these birth injuries that result directly from oxygen deprivation, other effects include the medical bills that the parents accumulate while seeking treatment for their newborn, the mental anguish of the family members who are devastated by news of the injury, and the daily challenges to be faced by the injured child as he or she grows up with a brain disorder or physical limitations.
Expert Birth Injury Lawyers
The fact is that all of these medical bills and human suffering are worth something to the victims and their families. No one can take away the pain of seeing a newborn struggle with a frightening condition, but when a negligent doctor is responsible for the situation, you do have recourse.
Our birth injury lawyers at Latona Law are experts at what they do. When you set up a free consultation with us to discuss your situation, we listen to your story and determine if you have a case. If we find there is sufficient reason to believe that a doctor who treated you or your newborn acted negligently and harmed one or both of you as a result, we will work hard to prove malpractice in court.
We gather evidence on our own first, including medical records, and eventually rely on a medical expert to testify for us in court. This expert will have already judged that the doctor did indeed act in a manner inconsistent with responsible medicine and was responsible for the baby being deprived of oxygen and getting injured. We never stop fighting for you, and in fact, you pay no costs or fees until we win.
That’s the Latona Law promise to you. We have spent more than three decades fighting for and winning compensation for families who have unfairly become victims of medical malpractice. Call us today to begin your own journey to financial restitution and peace of mind.