Can you provide some background into what constitutes a ‘birth injury’ and their prevalence in the US today? A birth injury involves a physical injury to a baby that occurs as a result of some event during labour and childbirth. While birth injuries are rare and occur in only six or seven births per 1,000 deliveries, they can be a devastating event with emotional, physical and financial implications to their parents and families. Birth injuries range from minor temporary injuries such as bruising and swelling to more permanent spinal cord and brain injuries that require life-long care or can even lead to death. How can malpractice on the part of medical practitioners cause or contribute to the formation of birth injuries? Medical practitioners care greatly for their patients but, on rare occasion, they fail to recognise signs of problems during labour and delivery. Whether they are an obstetrical nurse, nurse midwife, obstetrician or maternal fetal medicine specialist, miscommunication can occur during labour and delivery. In addition, during a pregnancy, test results can be missed or misinterpreted by a medical practitioner, resulting in a lapse of care that causes harm to a mother and baby. For example, failure to recognise elevated blood pressure during pregnancy or recognise irregular fetal heart rate patterns are also serious medical errors. Most medical errors do not result in harm, but if a critical test is not ordered and performed, the ability to intervene and prevent the injury is lost. Litigating Birth Injuries and Medical Malpractice 50 LAWYER MONTHLY APRIL 2023 Injuries that occur during labour and childbirth can be some of the most damaging to an infant, and there are many ways in which miscommunication or simple negligence can result in such severe outcomes. In this feature, Attorney and Board Certified Diagnostic Radiologist Armand Leone discusses the role that medical malpractice can play in causing birth injuries and how such cases ought to be handled. Expert Insight
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