A child who suffers from Cerebral Palsy will typically suffer lifelong consequences that negatively impact sensory and physical abilities, including speech, hearing, and sight, and the ability to walk and talk normally. Cerebral Palsy is often caused by a doctor’s or midwife’s failure to properly manage the birth process, which in turn results in a lack of oxygen to a baby’s brain, causing brain tissue to be destroyed.
The factors and circumstances that can cause unnecessary injury to a newborn during the labor-and-delivery process are incredibly complex. Navigating these circumstances to determine whether your child’s Cerebral Palsy could and should have been avoided with proper medical care and treatment requires not only experienced lawyers, but medical experts of the highest quality.
You can rely on our experience and experts to accurately interpret and evaluate your child’s medical care to determine whether your child’s injuries could have been prevented – and, if so, the very best way to prove it in court.
A child is most commonly diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy within the first two years of age. Oftentimes, however, a child’s labor and delivery and perinatal medical records contain clear signals of the diagnosis even before it is made.
A child suffering from cerebral palsy will begin to demonstrate very early signs and symptoms of the condition, including a failure to reach early developmental milestones, delays in physical development and muscle coordination, delays in crawling or walking, stiff or tight muscles, walking on toes, and/or floppy muscle tone.
Other neurologic systems can be negatively impacted by the condition, including bowel and bladder function, breathing, speech, eating, swallowing, learning, vision and hearing. Negligent delivery techniques can result in any of the three known types of cerebral palsy – spastic, athetoid and ataxic.
If your child suffers from cerebral palsy caused by medical malpractice, you are entitled to compensation for past and future medical expenses, future lost wages, pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life.
During the labor-and-delivery process, physicians, midwives and obstetrical nurses must adhere to well-recognized techniques to closely monitor the health of an unborn child. These techniques have been developed over decades of obstetrical practice following a number of high-level medical studies.
Appropriate monitoring during labor and delivery is an important and fundamental aspect of sound obstetrical medical practice, and any sign of fetal distress can be a clue that the unborn child is suffering from conditions such as hypoxia (inadequate oxygen supply) or anoxia (total lack of oxygen). Physicians, midwives and obstetrical nurses have at their disposal many tools to diagnose fetal distress in a timely fashion – before a child suffers injury.
Whether it’s through the use of ultrasound, bio-physical profiles, stress tests, non-stress tests or fetal monitoring strips during labor, applicable standards of medical care require physicians to appreciate and respond quickly to any evidence of fetal distress, including by ordering emergency or STAT C-section delivery to prevent an unborn child from suffering brain injury or other permanent injury.
A child suffering from cerebral palsy as a result of injury during labor and delivery can demonstrate early signs of the condition in many different ways. A common sign that a newborn has suffered oxygen deprivation and injury is seizures which present themselves in the form of body shaking, blank stares, interruptions in normal breathing patters, inability to sleep, head nodding, uncontrolled eyelid blinking, a loud pitched cry, tightening of an arm or leg, lip smacking, or shivering.
Contact us at 833-PORTER9, or e-mail us at info@porterlawteam.com to discuss the details of our experience representing other clients and the results we were able to obtain in the past for clients who are suffering as you are. In many ways, our results speak for themselves, and we will stand ready to help you and your family in your time of greatest need.