Health

What to Do If Your Child Receives a Birth Injury

Birth injuries in newborns are common. Sometimes babies suffer nerve damage, bone injuries, or some other minor injuries. Often these injuries resolve themselves over time or are fixed at the time of birth. A difficult delivery that results in birth injury may occur if the fetus is too big to easily pass the birth canal, if the fetus is acutely positioned or if the delivery is forced using forceps.

Below are a few things that might help you, as a parent, if your child receives a birth injury.

Birth Injury Lawsuit

Birth injuries can occur due to the malpractice or negligence of doctors or nurses present at the time of birth. If the parents believe that their child sustained the injury due to malpractice, then they should contact a lawyer.

While filing a birth injury lawsuit, parents should be able to provide evidence that the injury occurred due to malpractice or negligence to build a case and file their claim. The hospital might take responsibility for their medical error and agree to a large amount of settlement, but in the case that they do not settle, the case is taken to trial. If it is proven to be negligence or malpractice, the hospital will pay a huge penalty to the family involved. Malpractice and negligence cases can get you a large settlement if the case is pleaded right. So, you must contact a lawyer who has had experience in malpractice cases.

Child With Cerebral Palsy

One of the most common brain injuries during childbirth is cerebral palsy. Children who suffer this injury have difficulty performing motor functions and maintaining balance and posture. Hence, these children have special needs.

The doctors and therapists responsible for your child’s treatment will help your child regain as much function as possible, but this process can be long and straining for your child. A few things would help you make your child’s life a bit easier during these challenging times. For example, therapy for your child does not have to end as soon as the time with the therapist does.

You must help your child experience new things, so take them to museums, parks, and historical monuments and even play games with them to brighten the outlook and bond with them. Parents should make sure that the child is eating healthy. Children with cerebral palsy often have weak bones, so food rich in calcium is the way to go.

Chronic Seizures

During childbirth, it is common for a baby to be acutely positioned. This abnormal position of the fetus can result in reparatory distress during birth. Due to the lack of oxygen during delivery, the baby can suffer brain injuries such as cerebral palsy and chronic seizures.

Chronic seizures are the abnormal development of electrical activity in the child’s brain, which results in jerking movements in the body. Chronic seizures can disrupt your child’s life, but there are a few things parents can do to help alongside doctors’ treatment. Parents should take information from the doctor on things that might trigger seizures in their children, such as fever, light, hunger, and medicine. They should also make sure that their child is taking the prescribed medicine daily. In case your child’s seizure is triggered during showering or bathing, it is important to ensure necessary precautions.

Spinal Cord Injuries at Birth

The most serious kind of birth injury involves the spinal cord. These injuries usually occur due to overly forceful forceps during forced natural birth. A spinal cord injury can change the way a child’s body moves, feels or functions. In extreme cases, it can lead to paralysis as well.

Children react differently to spinal cord injuries. They may feel angry, sad, depressed, or even numb to emotions. As a parent, you must be there for your child, and there are several ways you can help. Besides ensuring the best possible medical care and therapy, you should be emotionally available for your child. Ask your child what they are feeling, and always reassure them that everything will be okay. Consider getting your child into therapy or a support group where they can talk about their feelings with people who might know what they are going through.

Erb’s Palsy

Brachial plexus injury (also known as Erb’s Palsy) in newborns can result in the baby losing motor function in the arm, fingers, forearm, hand, and shoulder. It can occur due to abnormal positioning, commonly the baby’s breech position during birth. Children with Erb’s palsy require special care and a lot of therapy. Sometimes, it can be fixed with surgery. Other times, nerve damage is too great and risky to fix by surgery.

Parents of children with Erb’s palsy can ensure that their child is getting the best possible physical and recreational therapy. The parents can learn a few physical exercises themselves to help their child perform them at home. There are many YouTube videos with great exercises for Erb’s palsy patients as well. Moreover, getting your child to join a support group for Erb’s palsy will help them cope with it mentally and maintain a positive outlook on the world.

Children who are victims of birth injuries require special care and the attention of their parents to cope with them and maintain a positive outlook on life. If this injury was a result of malpractice, then a lawsuit can get you the financial means to provide the best healthcare for your child and help them get the best out of life that they can.