If your child or you were injured during pregnancy, labor, or delivery in Atlanta, you may be facing questions about what happened in the delivery room and what it means for your family’s future. Our Atlanta medical malpractice lawyer can review the prenatal, labor, and newborn records and explain whether the care met accepted standards. Moriarty Medical Malpractice Lawyers prepared this guide to explain how birth injuries occur and when they may support a claim.
What a Birth Injury Is
A birth injury is harm to a baby or a mother caused by the care provided during pregnancy, labor, delivery, or the period immediately after birth. It is different from a birth defect, which arises from genetic or developmental factors rather than from the medical care itself.
Birth injury claims can involve obstetricians, family physicians, midwives, labor and delivery nurses, anesthesia providers, and neonatal staff. They can also involve the hospital, which is responsible for staffing the labor unit and for the systems that alert physicians to changes in a patient’s condition. Failures in those systems are a frequent issue in hospital negligence claims.
Common Types of Birth Injuries
- Brain injury from oxygen deprivation. When a baby’s brain does not receive enough oxygen and blood flow, the result can be hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, which may lead to lasting developmental and physical impairments.
- Cerebral palsy. Some cases of cerebral palsy result from injury to the brain around the time of birth, although many have other causes.
- Nerve injuries. Excessive force during a difficult delivery can damage the brachial plexus nerves in the shoulder and arm.
- Skull fractures and bleeding in the brain. These injuries can result from improper use of forceps or vacuum extractors. Our article on the risks of forceps delivery explains how these instruments can cause harm.
- Injuries to the mother. Hemorrhage, uterine rupture, infection, and complications of undiagnosed preeclampsia can cause serious harm to the mother.
How Errors During Pregnancy and Delivery Happen
- Misreading or not responding to signs of fetal distress on the heart rate monitor
- Delaying a cesarean delivery after the need for one became apparent
- Giving excessive doses of labor-inducing medication, as seen in some Pitocin injury cases
- Using forceps or a vacuum extractor improperly or for too long
- Failing to diagnose conditions in the mother, such as preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, or infection
- Not recognizing an emergency such as placental abruption and responding quickly enough
Many of these failures turn on timing. The records often show when a warning sign appeared and how long it took for the care team to act.
Negligence Compared With a Known Risk
Not every birth injury is the result of malpractice. Some complications occur even with careful monitoring and a prompt response. Cerebral palsy, for example, has many possible causes. About 1 in 345 children in the United States has been identified with cerebral palsy, and the condition is more common in children born preterm or at low birthweight, according to CDC data.
The legal question is whether the providers recognized and responded to the situation the way reasonably careful providers would have. A shoulder that becomes stuck during delivery may not be preventable. How the delivery team responds to it is measured against accepted obstetric practice. A claim must also show that different care would have prevented or lessened the injury, which often requires review by physicians in obstetrics, neonatology, and pediatric neurology.
The Evidence in a Birth Injury Claim
Birth injury claims rely on a detailed record of the hours before and after delivery:
- Prenatal records, including ultrasounds and lab results
- Fetal heart rate monitoring strips
- Labor and delivery nursing notes with time stamps
- Medication records, including any labor-inducing drugs and dose changes
- Delivery notes describing any instrument use or complications
- Cord blood gas results and newborn intensive care records
- Brain imaging and later developmental evaluations
Our guide to requesting your medical records explains how to request records for both mother and baby.
Deadlines for Children and Parents
Georgia sets special deadlines for children. A child injured before age five generally has until two years after the fifth birthday to bring a claim, and no claim may be brought after the tenth birthday. The parents’ own claims, such as for the child’s medical expenses, follow the standard two-year period, so the family’s deadlines can fall years apart. Our guide to Georgia filing deadlines explains these rules.
Birth injuries can require care for a lifetime. Our guide to malpractice damages in Georgia explains how future medical, therapy, and support needs are calculated.
What Families Can Do
- Focus on your child’s care. Follow the advice of your child’s physicians and therapists. This guide is not medical advice.
- Request records for mother and baby. Ask for the prenatal, labor, delivery, and newborn records, including the fetal monitoring strips.
- Write down a timeline. Note when labor began, what you were told, and when key decisions were made, while the details are fresh.
- Speak with a lawyer early. The parents’ two-year deadline often runs long before the child’s.
Next Steps
When the records suggest the care fell short, our birth injury lawyer page explains how our attorneys investigate these claims in Atlanta. Moriarty Medical Malpractice Lawyers also represents families in nearby communities, including Forest Park. Contact us to schedule a free consultation and have our attorneys review your records.
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