Infant Birth Injuries from Obstetrical Negligence

Hersh & Hersh has handled numerous cases on behalf of parents and their children who have suffered birth injuries during labor and delivery. While labor and delivery of a child can be routine, the process, if mismanaged by the medical providers, can cause brain damage and cerebral palsy, learning disabilities and other injuries to the baby.

For instance, a baby may be deprived of sufficient oxygen if a laboring mother’s contractions are too frequent or intense and the doctors or nurses do nothing to correct the situation. This deprivation of oxygen during labor may result in permanent brain injury to the newborn. If your baby has problems such as developmental delay, it may be the result of a mismanaged labor and delivery.

Passionate Representation in Infant Birth Injury Cases

Contact: Hersh & Hersh 800-441-5545

If you believe that your baby suffered brain injuries during labor and delivery and would like us to investigate the matter further for you, please contact us.

Example of Infant Birth Injury Case

In one birth injury case that caused cerebral palsy, Hersh & Hersh recovered over $6 million dollars for a family whose infant was injured during birth. The hospital’s labor and delivery nurse failed to properly manage a laboring mother causing her baby severe brain injury.

Hersh & Hersh teamed with experts in obstetrics, radiology and neurology to work to provide the family the financial security to provide excellent future care and treatment for their child.

The case involved the negligent supervision of a woman’s labor and delivery. As a result of the hospital and doctor’s negligence, the baby suffers from cerebral palsy and will need constant assistance for even the most basic living tasks for the rest of his life.

Prior to leaving the hospital for home, the doctor ordered the administration of Oxytocin to the mother in amounts of up to 40 milliunits. Thereafter, the nurse increased the Oxytocin as ordered without regard to frequency of the patient’s contractions or the signs of fetal distress which had persisted for hours and were evident on the heart monitor strip. Finally the nurse called the doctor to come to the delivery room to review the strip and examine the patient. Soon after the doctor’s arrival, there was a severe drop in the baby’s heart rate (fetal bradycardia), which led to an emergency C-section to try to prevent brain damage.

The C-section was necessitated by a terminal fetal bradycardia that occurred after several hours of worsening fetal distress brought on by uterine hyperstimulation caused by excessive Oxytocin ordered by the doctor. Hyperstimulation is a condition where maternal contractions are separated by less than two minutes. Hyperstimulation is a known risk of Oxytocin administration. Hyperstimulation poses the greatest risk of fetal oxygen reserve depletion during labor. This requires careful observation of the fetal heart tones and immediate response if there are abnormalities. Such care would have avoided the bradycardia, which resulted from oxygen deprivation and would have prevented the brain damage.

The baby suffered very severe mental deficiencies, mental retardation, inability to speak and other problems resulting from negligence of the obstetricians.

Hersh & Hersh gathered evidence and fought hard for this family, showing the baby’s future medical care and living assistance costs. Because of Hersh & Hersh’s work, the family has the funds needed to help their child.