Brain Injuries at Birth

Newborns in East Tennessee sometimes suffer brain injuries during the birthing process. These brain injuries may affect the baby throughout their life. Some brain injuries that may be suffered at birth include head trauma, hypoxia, and ischemia. If your baby suffered brain injuries at birth, experienced Knoxville brain injury lawyer Mark Hartsoe and the team at the Hartsoe Law Firm may be able to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit on behalf of you and your baby.

When your child's brain injury is caused by medical negligence before or during the birthing process, you may be able to bring a birth injury lawsuit, which is a type of medical malpractice case. Not every bad outcome is a result of negligence by a doctor. However, many brain injuries sustained at birth were preventable. Sometimes the severity of a birth injury is not clear until a child starts to have developmental difficulties. However, when a baby is blue in color or has difficulty breathing, low APGAR scores, seizures, or an irregular heart rate, you should investigate whether there may have been a birth injury.

Common birth injuries that may affect the brain include birth asphyxia, traumatic birth injuries, forceps injuries, untreated birth canal infections, and caput succedaneum. Sometimes a baby receives poor care immediately after their birth, such as a failure to treat an infection, and this also may result in brain injuries.

To establish medical negligence in the context of your baby’s brain injury, you will need to prove that a health care professional failed to meet the professional standard of care as determined by the medical community when faced with a similar patient and that the breach caused your baby's brain injury. The standard of care for Tennessee obstetricians in a birth injury case may vary depending on the age and health of the mother, as well as other factors.

Acts by a health care professional that are likely to be considered medical negligence include failing to respond to umbilical cord entrapment, failing to treat bleeding or an infection, failing to take precautions in connection with complicated births, failing to treat fetal distress, failing to stop a preterm birth, failing to order a necessary C-section, and misusing delivery instruments. We will need to retain a credible expert to review your medical records and the actions of your doctors and nurses to determine whether they met the standard of care under the circumstances.

An expert will need to testify as to what the standard of care was, how the doctor breached it, and how it caused the baby’s injuries. Generally, expert witnesses need to practice in a field of medicine that makes their testimony relevant and must have practiced in Tennessee or a contiguous bordering state in the year prior to the incident. Usually, at least one of the expert witnesses in a brain birth injury case is a board-certified OB-gyn. The expert needs to be familiar with the accepted standard of care in the community where your baby’s injuries occurred. This is a very complicated area of law that requires an experienced lawyer to assist you.

If you are concerned about your child's brain injuries at birth, you should consult an experienced medical malpractice attorney. Call the Hartsoe Law Firm at 865-804-1011 or contact us via our online form for a free consultation. Knoxville brain injury attorney Mark Hartsoe represents injured children throughout East Tennessee, including in Knox, Blount, Monroe, Loudon, Jefferson, Grainger, Cocke, Campbell, Hamblen, Greene, Anderson, Cumberland, and Fentress Counties.