Having a child is a beautiful experience, but it can also be a very difficult and even traumatic experience. Giving birth is not easy, and you trust your medical team to help you make things go as smoothly as possible.
Unfortunately, both the child and the mother could be injured when things go wrong in the delivery room. Doctors make mistakes, and they can have very serious ramifications. Let’s consider some of those mistakes below.
Fetal distress
One problem that can come up is simply when the doctors realize that the baby is in distress. They could see issues like an irregular heartbeat, for instance, or the amniotic fluid levels could be too low. In a situation like this, it’s important that doctors recognize the issue quickly and take appropriate action. If they overlook it or don’t do anything to help the child at this time, that could cause the distress to get even worse.
Mistakes with medical devices
In some cases, doctors and medical teams can actually injure babies during the delivery process if they make mistakes using the medical devices. A common example of this is when they have to use forceps to assist with the delivery. Some babies are born with bruising, lacerations or even broken bones.
Lack of oxygen
When a baby doesn’t get enough oxygen to its brain during delivery, it may be born with a condition known as cerebral palsy. In some cases, doctors can make mistakes that cause the airflow to be cut off. In others, doctors may simply fail to realize that the child has the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck or that something else has gone wrong.
Labor that moves at the wrong speed
Generally speaking, you want labor to take a number of hours, but not more than a day. The average runs about between 6 hours and 18 hours. If labor progresses too quickly, that can lead to complications or doctors may make mistakes because they didn’t anticipate it. If labor takes too long, that can be highly detrimental to the child and the doctors may need to order a C-section.
If your child has been harmed during delivery, or if you have, make sure you know about all of your rights to seek compensation.