Brockton Birth Injury Lawyers

What types of birth injury cases do you handle in Brockton?

At the Law Offices of Gerald J. Noonan, we understand how devastating it is to be told your child has a birth injury. It’s even more crushing to learn that the birth injury was preventable. Our Brockton birth injury lawyers represent children and families when a child develops any of the following disorders due to medical malpractice.

• Cerebral palsy. Oxygen deprivation during birth can cause cerebral palsy (CP). According to Boston’s Children’s Hospital, CP is “a group of disorders that affect muscle tone, posture, and movement as a result of damage to an infant's developing brain.” If your newborn has CP, some of the complications may include learning disabilities, epilepsy, hearing/vision loss, speech difficulties, and developmental delays. CP is a well-known birth delivery danger. Doctors should anticipate when CP may develop and know how to respond quickly.

CP is classified as follows based on various conditions such as spastic limb movement, which part of the body is affected, involuntary movements, repetitive muscle contractions, and other factors:

• • Spastic diplegia
  • Spastic quadriplegia
  • Spastic hemiplegia
  • Athetoid
  • Dystonia
• Brachial plexus injuries. The brachial plexus is a nerve network between the neck and shoulders that controls muscle function in the upper body. Doctors should anticipate and respond to the possibility of a brachial plexus injury during the delivery of a newborn. Medical malpractice may cause the brachial plexus nerves to stretch, tear, or compress – possibly causing loss of muscle function or even paralysis of the upper arm.

Brachial plexus injuries include injuries due to stretching, rupture, tearing, and avulsion. Possible causes include the improper use of vacuum extractors or forceps or excessive stretching. A few common types of brachial plexus injuries are:

• • Erb’s palsy. Damage to the upper portion (C5, C6, and sometimes C7) of the brachial plexus.
  • Klumpke’s palsy. Damage to the lower roots (C8, T1) of the brachial plexus often affects your newborn’s hand muscles.
  • Horner’s syndrome. This is often an avulsion injury that impacts nerves in the T2 to T4 region.
• Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE). This birth injury is due to the lack of oxygen and blood to the brain. HIE can damage your newborn’s organs and cause CP.

Other types of birth injuries, according to Stanford Medicine, include:

• Face, head, and skull marks and bruises. These injuries may occur when a birth delivery physician improperly uses forceps or vacuum extractors to help guide a newborn through the birth canal.
• Caput succedaneum. This condition involves swelling of your baby’s soft tissues. The improper use of vacuum extractors can cause this birth injury condition.
• Cephalohematoma. This birth injury involves bleeding of the skull bone and its fibrous covering. Some babies may develop jaundice.
• Facial paralysis. Pressure on your baby’s face can injure facial nerves. Forceps during delivery can cause this injury. Surgery may be necessary if the nerve is torn.
• Fractures. A fracture of a newborn’s collarbone or clavicle is common during a breech delivery if there is a problem with the newborn’s shoulder.

Other birth injuries include:

• Subconjunctival hemorrhage
• Kernicterus
• Brain ischemia
• Infant meningitis
• Spinal cord damage

Tragically, some birth injuries are fatal. We file wrongful death claims when babies are born stillborn or die due to their birth injuries.

A mother may also suffer injuries due to incompetent medical care during pregnancy or delivery, including uterine ruptures, pelvic fractures, preeclampsia, and bleeding.