Thursday 5 June 2008

Fractures of the Clavicle

Fractures of the clavicle is something else that can occur in your newborn baby and you can easily claim for compensation. However the good news with any type of birth injury is that your lawyer in Illinois may well be able to negotiate and out of court settlement which is a much easier option.

Shoulder dystocia can happen is the baby becomes stuck behind the pelvic bone of the mother when the baby is travelling along the birth canal. If this problem is not spotted there can be a lot of injury to the baby. If the obstetrician attempts to pull the baby's head in order to help with the birth process, the problems can be devasting for the baby and the family.

If a baby has too much lateral traction upon its head when its sholder is stuck this can cause the nerves in the baby's body to become stretched and torn which can cause real problems. When this happens the condition is called either Erbs palsy, Brachial Plexus palsy or Klumpke's palsy. The health implications of this can be very long-lasting and the arm will become greatly disabled. It means that often the child cannot use their arm or hand at all.

Although such situations are unfortunate, there is a lot that a doctor can use in order to prevent it from happening in the first place. There are a number of " maneuvers" that are used specifically when the baby becomes stuck and these maneuvers are called woods, rubin and McRobert and they should be tried before doing anything else. If these maneuvers don't work then other techniques can be used. Applying suprapubic pressure involves placing some pressure on the mother's stomach just below where the baby is sitting. An episiotomy can also be used and this involved making a cut and this prevets the skin tearing when the baby passes through the birth canal.

There are even a couple of other techniques which should be used as a last resort and one of them is to actually fracture the baby's clavicle bone. This can been seen as very drastic but in an emergency situation it might be the only hope. But fracturing the bone, the baby's shoulders should be narrower and therefore because to pass through the mother's pelvis. Another last ditch attempt can involce using the Zavanelli maneuver where the baby is pushed back up into the vagina which will then allow the surgeons to carry out a emergency cesarean section. Although this is not something that happens often, it is a technique that can be used when seen as the only option.

Medical staff have a really tough job and most of the time they will do everything in their power to make sure that your baby is delvered healthy. However in some circumstances such birth injuries can be avoided and only happen because of medical malpractice. There are many birth injury lawyers in Illinois who will be able to look at your case and help you win compensation if you and your baby are the victim of medical malpractice.

Facial Paralysis

Facial paralysis is just one type of birth defect and happens when the baby has more pressure on the face than it should. Although this condition can often sort itself out, sometimes surgery is needed. This is a condition you may or may not want to sue over. You should of course discuss this with your lawyer in Illinois.

Birth Injury Settlements

Although many birth defects can occur for many reasons, sometimes it can happen because of medical malpractice. This is where an injury lawyer comes in because they will be able to fight to get you the best settlement. Sometimes the amount of money paid out can be enormous, running into millions of dollars in some cases. Birth injuries can be very traumatic for those concerned so sometimes sueing for compensation is needed.

Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral Palsy is just one of the many birth defects that some children are born with. It horrible to think that when you have a baby you expect it to be perfectly healthy but there are complications that can occur in a small percentage of births. It can occur to the baby during birth or even before. There are a number of different types of Cerebal Palsy that can occur.

Having a baby should be an exciting and wonderful experience but having a child with some sort of birth injury can be devastating. It would seem that between 3 and 4 percent of babies are bon with some sort of injury caused during the birth. It's no wonder that so many people are searcing for cerebral palsy lawyers because it turns out that about 5 to 10 thousand babies in the US alone are born with the condition.

It's not a disease, rather it's a physical condition which is a result of the brain being damaged, whether it's before during or after the birth of the baby. When it comes to cerebral palsy, you will notice that there is athetoid, ataxic, spastic and mixed. Each of these conditions have their own characteristics and so have to be dealt with differently. You will find that the spastic variety is the most common and accounts for about 80% of cases reported in the US.

So why does this condition occur? It's because of the lack of oxygen, also known as birth asphyxia. This is far from being a simple condition and it's not easy to prevent it from happening. There are many issues connected to cerabal palsy such as there being a hemorrhage in the baby's brain or the mother could have suffered from rubella. Also if the mother took drugs or alcohol whilst pregnant this can be a cause.

It's never easy for medical staff to diagnos the brain injury of a newborn baby however they are trained to be able to identify symptoms once they become apparent. Because it's difficult to see the problems when they first occur, the injury to the brain may then turn into cerebral palsy. Although in most cases this condition cannot be diagnosed earlier, if it can be proved that the condition occurred due to medical malpractice then you have every right to go and see cerebral palsy attorney in Illinois or whoever is local to you. Although you cannot turn back time, you might feel that you want to make a cerebral palsy claim which is certainly not unusual because there are plenty of lawsuits that have occurred because of it..