Types of Birth Injury

A list and explanation of the common types of Birth Injury, including Cerebral Palsy, Erbs Palsy, Bone Fractures, Paralysis, Infections, etc. and their causes.

Bone Fractures · Brain Damage · Spinal Cord Injury · Skin Irritation and Bruises · Paralysis · Infection · Forceps Injury · Cerebral Palsy · Erbs Palsy

Bone Fractures

A fractured collar bone (clavicle) is the most common bone broken in birth injuries. Unfortunately, many times it cannot be predicted and it cannot be prevented.

However, a fractured bone during birth could be the result of negligence on the part of the doctor or other medical professional, if the complications that caused the fracture were foreseeable or if the injury resulted from an improper action or reaction by the doctor.

Certain conditions indicate a higher likelihood of birth injuries, including bone fractures; these include:  

Even in cases of large babies, the chance that the baby will get stuck during delivery is less than 10 percent, and the odds that a bone fracture will result are even smaller. The signs of a bone fracture are straightforward:  

Often, an X-Ray is needed to confirm a broken bone. In most cases, the prognosis is favorable, as baby bones heal quickly. However, this does not mean that complications will not arise.

Brain Damage

The most severe type of brain injury is brain damage, as it can result is serious lifelong disability or death. A common type of brain injury which occurs at birth is Cerebral Palsy. Cerebral Palsy impairs motor functioning and causes other chronic physical and cognitive impairments. The improper use of vacuum extractors can also cause brain injury at birth and even lead to autism. A lack of oxygen during the baby's birth is another factor that can lead to a brain injury at birth.

Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal Cord Injuries (SCI) are a serious type of birth injury and while they are infrequent, when they do occur, the injury to the baby usually results in lifelong disability. As with other types of birth injury, the occur most often when complications arise during the pregnancy or delivery. Common complications that could lead to spinal cord injury include:

The spinal cord is a group of nerves that stretch from the brain down the spine to the waist. IT is protected from injury by the neck and backbone. The nerves connected to the spinal cord effect movement and feeling in the extremities of the body, and consequently, birth injuries that harm the spinal cord impact the baby's ability to feel and move.

The consequneces of a spinal cord injury depend on what portion of the spinal cord if damaged during delivery; resulting injuries include paraplegia and quadriplegia.

Paraplegia: This spinal cord injury occurs when the mid to low back area of the spinal cord is injured, and the most common consequence is paralysis of the baby's legs.

Quadriplegia: When the spinal cord is damaged in your upper back or neck region, both the arms and legs of the infant may be paralyzed.

Other types of birth injuries that could injure the spinal cord include:

Skin Irritation and Bruises

Bruises, abrasions, and skin irritation are relatively common birth injuries that fortunately, do not usually result in long term damage or disability. Sometimes, bruising occurs simply as a consequence of passing though the mother's birth canal and coming in contact with the pelvic bones and tissues. Two other common causes of bruising are forceps delivery and vacuum extraction. Forceps can leave temporary marks or bruises on the baby's face and head. Vacuum extraction may result in scalp bruising or a scalp laceration. In most cases, these injuries are not serious, and the bruises will disappear in a few weeks. If you have reason to believe that the bruising or lacerations to your infant are more serious, you should consult a birth injury lawyer, who can advise you how to proceed, in order to best protect your newborn.

Paralysis

Infant paralysis at birth can result from a range of birth injuries, including shoulder dystocia (when the child's arm gets stuck due to delivery complications), cerebral palsy, or injuries to the spinal cord. Infant paralysis injuries range from loss of sensation in one area of the body to quadriplegia, which is the loss of movement in all four limbs. These are serious birth injuries.

Facial Paralysis is a birth injury caused by some trauma or damage to the baby's facial nerve either while in the mother's womb or through a difficult delivery. the most common way in which to diagnose facial paralysis is to watch the baby as it cries. The damage to the facial nerve that causes facial paralysis will show on the baby's face, as the baby will not be able to move the side or portion of the face, including eyes and mouth, that have been injured.

Infection

Birth injuries to the baby may occur when the mother develops an infection or illness. When a pregnant woman develops an infection, the impact on the health of the baby depends several factors, including:

There are two major types and routes of maternal infection:

Hematogenous viral infection: Maternal viral infections usually begin in the mother's blood. Consequently, they are transmitted to the fetus via the maternal blood, through the villi, which are the tiny, fingerlike projections of the placenta through which the mother and baby exchange nutrients, gases, and wastes.

Viral infections transmited in this manner may attack a fetus's brain cells and cause other disorders that impair the baby's growth and development.

Ascending bacterial infection: Bacterial agents usually ascend through the cervix, penetrating both the placental membranes and amniotic fluid, causing changes in the placenta that disrupt its capacity to deliver oxygen and nutrients to the fetus and to eliminate wastes and carbon dioxide. This can cause serious complications in the pregnancy. The baby also may be exposed to bacteria during delivery and subsequently develop an infection after birth, known as sepsis.

Forceps Injury

Cerebral Palsy

One of the most well known birth injuries is Cerebral palsy (CP). Cerebral Palsy is a medical condition that is caused by a permanent brain injury that occurs before, during, or shortly after birth. The effects of Cerebral Palsy are serious and lifelong disability, characterized by lack of muscle control and abnormal body movement. It affects a person's physical movement, ability to speak, hearing, sight, and brain function. Early warning signs of Cerebral Palsy include delayed development and abnormal muscle tone. Cerebral Palsy is not a progressive disease of the brain, meaning that it does not get worse as time passes. However, the effects of cerebral palsy may change gradually over the years.

The exact cause of cerebral palsy has not been definitively identified, though the general causes are known, as it has been linked to the health the mother and child, as well as to birth accidents that result in brain damage to the baby.

Erbs Palsy

Erb's Palsy, which is also called Brachial plexus paralysis and Brachial plexus palsy, is a medical condition which is caused by an injury or trauma at birth and results in damage to 1 or all of the 5 primary nerves in the shoulder that supply the movement and feeling to an arm. A child can recover from Erb's Palsy without medical intervention, but if recovery does not happen naturally, surgery may be required.

Erb's Palsy is usualy caused by shoulder dystocia, a difficult childbirth or labor in which the baby's head and neck are forced to the side as the shoulders pass through the birth canal. Erb's Palsy can also be caused by excessive pulling on the shoulders during a vertex delivery (head first) or by pressure on the raised arms during a breech delivery.

In most Erb's Palsy cases, full range of motion is recovered, babies who have not yet healed after 1 year rarely gain full function in their arm and may develop arthritis.

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