Tampa Birth Injury Lawyer

By definition, a birth injury is an injury caused during the gestational period or during the process of labor. If you are facing the reality of a birth injury in your family, contact a Tampa birth injury attorney for assistance in taking proper legal recourse against the negligent health care provider.

Types of Birth Injuries

The most common birth injuries include injuries to the nerves at the top of the spine, called the brachial plexus. Bone fractures are also common. There are also a number of types of hematoma that can occur under the skull between the brain and the bone called cephalohematomas. Peritoneal asphyxia can occur, which is when a baby is deprived of oxygen, for example, when the umbilical cord wraps around its neck or the umbilical cord is restricted, and the baby does not get oxygen to the brain. Cerebral palsy is a big one when injuries occur while extracting the baby, as well as spinal cord injuries.

Cerebral Palsy

Two or three out of every 1,000 children have cerebral palsy.  It is characterized by muscle spasms, sometimes muscle weakness, and lack of a development of motor skills. A portion of the baby’s brain and/or spinal column is not providing the necessary communications from the body back to the brain. There is no cure for cerebral palsy and can be completely debilitating.

Erb’s Palsy Injuries

Erb’s Palsy is a paralysis, normally of the arms, caused by the main nerves damaged in the top of the spine. It is part of that brachial plexus when a shoulder dislocation or an injury is caused because the child was removed in an improper fashion or “squeezed too hard.”

A lot of these things resolve by themselves over a couple of months, because once the fracture is taken apart, the nerves begin to fire again. Sometimes it requires a lot of therapy and those children sometimes require surgery to get their nerve endings to work.

The symptoms indicating Erb’s Palsy are that a child cannot use their arms or they are very weak in their arms and not able to thrive. Sometimes radiology can show that the arms are somehow dislocated or incapable of rotating. While this is not always the case, Erb’s palsy is normally in the arms. A person may also notice that a child looks deformed because an arm is moving in the wrong direction due to the dislocation.

Erb’s palsy requires a lot of long-term monitoring. So if a child has Erb’s palsy, the hope is that it is identified and treated quickly and that palsy resolves itself. If it does not and the physical therapies do not make it better, a person has to monitor the condition and get a Tampa birth injury attorney that is following the progress. If it does become permanent, normally the time constraints of two years of statute of limitations are close to running or have run. So, it is important to follow Erb’s palsy closely from the beginning with the assitance of a lawyer.

Becoming Aware of a Birth Injury

Some birth injuries are obvious because the injuries cause the babies to be insatiable, for example, they will not stop crying or are just unresponsive. However, a lot of birth injuries are not identified until after a baby begins to develop and the parents recognize a failure of their baby to thrive in a particular area. For example, cerebral palsy and spinal cord injuries are more difficult to identify because the effect of the injury sometimes is not readily apparent until the baby fails to develop within the expected normal range.

Taking Legal Action

The options available to the victim and parents at that point are making a claim to be able to cover the cost associated with the treatment of a particular medical conditions caused by the malpractice. They can also demand damages that cover the cost associated with the life care for an affected child.

Additionally, there are damages available to parents for their loss of consortium and the time that they are going to have to dedicate to care for an injured child. In addition, there is pain and suffering for the child. Contacting a birth injury lawyer in Tampa can help you get the finances you need to properly care and provide for your little one throughout the remainder of their life.