Your Newborn and Brachial Plexus Injury

Expectant parents have an expectation that the delivering obstetrician is going to give their unborn child the absolute best care possible.

It is unimaginable to think that something life altering will occur, especially when it is an avoidable permanent injury. If your newborn baby suffers from a brachial plexus injury, talk with a Missouri birth injury attorney. This condition can cause a permanent disability to your growing child, necessitating a lifetime of special care.

Brachial Plexus Injury

A brachial plexus injury refers to weakness or complete loss of movement in one of the arms as a result of a collection of nerves that surround a shoulder that has been damaged during birth. This may happen for several reasons including:

• The head of the baby pulls to one side as the shoulders pass through the birth canal.
• The physician pulls on the shoulders of the baby as he or she is passing through the birth canal.
• During a breech delivery, pressure is applied to the baby’s raised arms.

Standards of Care

In order to determine if medical malpractice was the cause of the birth injury, you will first need to understand how it occurred. There are standards of care that an obstetrician is obligated to follow and by breaching these standards of care, an obstetrician could be found to be negligent.

In order to prove negligence with a birth injury case, a Missouri birth injury lawyer will need to present evidence that the doctor deviated from what other professionals under the same set of circumstances would have done. For example, if it was obvious before the birth that the baby was over-sized and a caesarian section was not recommended, the doctor may be found to have neglected the duty to provide proper care if other doctors testify that this is what should have been done under those circumstances.

Case Study – Permanent Disfigurement

A Missouri couple was able to reach a settlement for an undisclosed amount of money for birth injuries that their newborn baby girl suffered from. The delivering obstetrician in this case pulled too hard on her head, causing injury to the brachial plexus. This caused a permanent disfigurement to the arm and the complete loss of its use.

Birth injury cases present a unique set of difficulties, as the future of a newborn child has been altered before their life has even begun. Future medical care will need to be considered as part of a birth injury claim as well as the child’s loss of having the opportunities that other children have. This is especially devastating when the injury could have been prevented had the physician reacted appropriately.