Birth injuries are among the most devastating potential consequences of medical malpractice. When physicians and other medical professionals make mistakes during labor and delivery, expectant parents and unborn children often pay the price.
Birth injuries can cause serious complications that require immediate treatment or impact a child’s development. Birth injuries can be the result of doctors performing the wrong interventions or making mistakes when offering medical support.
However, failing to notice significant medical issues quickly enough, which may constitute negligence, is a leading cause of birth injuries. Healthcare professionals have a limited window of opportunity to intervene when things go wrong during labor, and improper fetal monitoring can be the underlying cause of a devastating birth injury.
Consistent monitoring is the medical standard
Once a woman enters active labor, both she and the unborn child she carries benefit from constant medical supervision. A fetal heart rate monitor is the most effective way to check for signs of distress in an unborn child and ensure they receive appropriate interventions quickly. Nationwide standards for best practices during labor and delivery include fetal heart rate monitoring during active labor.
The failure to use a fetal heart rate monitor, to keep the device in effective working condition or to respond appropriately when the monitor shows signs of fetal distress are all forms of negligence that do not align with current best practices. The infant may go into distress, and medical professionals may fail to intervene.
Reviewing records of what happened during labor and delivery with a skilled legal team can help parents dealing with the aftermath of a preventable birth injury determine if malpractice has occurred. A medical malpractice lawsuit could compensate an affected family for lost wages and increased medical expenses related to a preventable birth injury.