Expertise
We have helped hundreds of families whose child has been impacted by a birth injury.
Having a baby is an exciting time, an event that should be filled with great joy. Every expectant parent has dreams of a life full of accomplishment and happiness for their child. While most children are born healthy, a small number of newborns suffer injury at or near the time of birth. These traumatic birth events are devastating for every parent. Once the initial shock has started to wear off, most parents want to know what happened to their baby. Questions arise about why their baby was injured, and whether the injury could have and should have been prevented. This is the time to turn to a Birth Injury Lawyer for help. Finding the answers to these questions can be difficult. An experienced Birth Injury Lawyer can help answer these questions for parents. As personal injury lawyers with considerable experience in Birth Injury cases, we are here to help. If you have any questions about medical negligence leading to a Birth Injury, we may be able to help you find the answers.
What are birth injuries?
Most Birth Injuries are related to a disruption in blood flow to the baby’s brain, although other forms of trauma also occur at or around the time of birth. Injury to the baby’s brain from impaired blood flow to the brain can occur before labour, during labour and delivery, or shortly after birth. If severe enough, the impaired flow of oxygen can cause permanent injury to the baby’s brain, resulting in a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy. Unfortunately, Cerebral Palsy is a permanent injury to the brain that often results in severe motor dysfunction, cognitive impairment and developmental delays. It can also affect vision and hearing and can often cause seizures. Cerebral Palsy resulting from birth trauma will have a dramatic impact on many aspects of their lives. They will have need for care, therapies and surgical interventions, often for life.
Other injuries from physical trauma can also occur, most notably from shoulder dystocia, resulting in injury to the nerves in the neck, shoulder and arm. Other forms of Birth Trauma are described below.
Types of birth injuries
Some examples of birth injuries would include:
- Fetal & Neonatal Stroke
- Hypoglycemia leading to brain damage
Negligent Newborn Resuscitation
It’s music to the ears of new parents and everyone else in or near the delivery room: a baby’s ear-piercing cry. While the sound of a crying baby will likely sound a little less melodic in the weeks and months of sleepless nights that will follow, that first cry is the baby has taking that all-important first breath.
When there is silence after a delivery, or concerning sounds like gasps, medical practitioners must assess the situation, refer to their training, and determine if the baby needs any assistance to start receiving the breath of life. Up to one in 10 babies born require simple stimulation (drying and rubbing) to help them breath. Three to six percent of newborns require basic resuscitation (bag-and-mask ventilation). Less than one percent need more serious interventions, including: endotracheal intubation, chest compressions and/or medication.
Without prompt attention and the correct level of care required, newborns requiring resuscitation can suffer severe birth injuries or death. In some cases, even the most valiant efforts of a medical team cannot prevent these injuries or death. However, if medical providers are negligent and breach accepted standards of care, a baby who would otherwise have a good prognosis could suffer irreparable harm.
If you or a loved one has given birth to child who received (or should have received) resuscitation at birth and suffered serious injuries as a result of this medical care, you may be able to access compensation and damages for the tragedy that you have experienced.
Resuscitation at birth.
Why do some babies require resuscitation?
Although any newborn could require resuscitation and breathing assistance at birth, there are several conditions and complications that put some babies at greater risk. These factors include:
- unduly stressful labour, some resulting in instrument delivery (forceps/vacuum).
- pre-term or post-term labour.
- meconium aspiration syndrome.
- umbilical cord prolapse.
- large birth size/weight.
- Shoulder dystocia.
- Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR).
- concerning vital signs.
Maternal risk factors include:
- gestational diabetes.
- a maternal age under 16 or over 40.
- prior high-risk births.
- infections or disease.
- placenta previa.
- placental abruption.
- sudden onset of severe bleeding during pregnancy.
- rupture of membranes.
How do medical practitioners determine if resuscitation is needed?
If a baby is delivered at or near term, is breathing or crying normally, and has a healthy colour or skin tone, usually routine afterbirth care (drying, clearing airways and warming) is all that is needed. In the event that one or more of these conditions is lacking, additional care may be required. If the baby’s heart rate is less than 100 beats per minute, some level of resuscitation effort is likely needed.
Positive-pressure ventilation (a self-inflating bag, a flow-inflating bag, or a T-piece resuscitator) is usually sufficient for basic resuscitation. Medical providers will likely judge the success of this resuscitation by looking for the baby’s heart rate to increase above the 100 beats per minute (bpm) mark and/or for improvements on Apgar scores.
More significant interventions are required if the baby’s heart rate falls below 60 bpm. In these cases, the first line of treatment is chest compressions. If this action is insufficient, the medical provider may consider intubation. As a last resort, the baby may receive epinephrine in hopes of increasing its heart rate or a defibrillator.
Resuscitation birth injuries.
If maternal health or pre-delivery monitoring of the fetus reveals risk factors, more than one medical provider trained in advanced resuscitation techniques should ideally be present in the delivery room. Failure to call for such resources, if they are available, could be an indication of negligence.
During delivery, careful monitoring of maternal and fetal vital signs is necessary to allow medical practitioners to act as quickly as possible if abnormalities are detected. Failure to detect and promptly act when resuscitation if needed immediately after birth can cause injury and/or worsen odds for successful resuscitation efforts.
Finally, even when infant resuscitation does take place, injuries can result from improper technique and/or failure to assess the required level of intervention in a timely manner. For example, a baby with a shallow or laboured breath at birth will require a different resuscitation protocol than a baby not breathing on its own. Since the potential for brain damage due to hypoxia increases by the minute, beginning with the wrong type of resuscitation could waste precious time.
When intubation is required, there are multiple points at which a mistake could be made. The tube used must be sized according to weight and gestational age. A tube placed too far down the trachea could enter the bronchial space and either limit oxygen exchange or cause a pneumonthorax. A tube placed in the esophagus rather than the trachea can hinder breathing. Obstructions of the tube and perforations of organs are also possible injuries during negligent intubation procedures.
Permanent damage and disability.
Within a matter of minutes, a newborn’s life can change forever. Resuscitation errors can result in infant mortality or a myriad of disabilities. Brain damage from hypoxia is the most serious long-term injury from negligent resuscitations. This damage can cause cerebral palsy, autism, intellectual disabilities, cognitive disabilities, physical disabilities, or functional disorders such as ADD or ADHD.
The extent of such disabilities may not be immediately apparent. Sometimes it’s only as a child ages that abnormal development is recognized. Living with a serious disability is very challenging for both the injured child and their loved ones. Assistive devices, therapies and medications can help many people as they navigate these conditions, but some severely disabled people will not be able to live independently, hold employment, and may require significant support throughout their lives.
While these treatments and other supports can be very costly, if the child’s injuries or disabilities were the result of negligent resuscitation, they and/or their loved ones may be able to receive compensation and damages for their losses and the cost of future care.
Here to help.
When the joy and excitement of a new birth turns to worry, sadness and despair, you may not know what to do or where to turn. As one of Canada’s leading birth injury law firms, Gluckstein Personal Injury Lawyers can help you as you make sense of what happened and learn and understand your rights and various options.
Our team of knowledgeable, experienced and skilled birth injury lawyers have handled many cases where negligent resuscitation caused serious harm to a newborn. Drawing on our network of healthcare experts, we determine whether standards of care were breached during pregnancy, at the time of delivery, or in the critical first minutes after birth that would have caused your child’s injuries.
Establishing how substandard care led to injury can be challenging as there are many variables during a birth that can sometimes obscure the way medical negligence affected the outcome. Gluckstein Personal Injury Lawyers’ decades of experience and our focus on cases within this field will give you confidence in our representation.
A strong reputation among peers and clients.
Recognized by our peers in the legal field as one of Canada’s Top 10 Personal Injury Firms, Gluckstein Personal Injury Lawyers is known for our innovation, for ability to handle even the most complex cases, and for our commitment to full-circle client care.
When you first contact us, a member of our team will listen to your story with great attentive concern and empathy. We will explain your rights and options and discuss possible next steps if you would like to file a claim against a medical practitioner and/or institutional provider.
You may be concerned about the cost to pursue a lawsuit; however, when Gluckstein Lawyers take on a case it's because we believe strongly that we will be able to achieve a positive outcome for our client. Therefore, we only accept payment if we are successful in negotiating a settlement or winning a court award for you.
If we become your legal representative, you will benefit from our renowned client liaisons - some of whom have their own experience with family members who have sustained serious personal injuries. These liaisons will be there to answer any and all questions you have about the process or simply to check in to see how you are managing.
Even after your case has been settled or decided at trial, Gluckstein Personal Injury Lawyers are always here for our clients. Why? We see and treat our clients as if they are family and we care about your well-being both now and into the future.
Trust our team to be on your side during this difficult time in your life. Contact Gluckstein Personal Injury Lawyers today to learn more about what we can do for you.
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What our birth trauma lawyers can do
If you think your child or grandchild has suffered a Birth Injury that might have been preventable, we can help make that determination. We start by meeting with you to get the facts. We then obtain all the relevant medical records and perform a detailed and comprehensive review. Where indicated, we will consult with highly qualified, respected and independent doctors to get the answers you need and deserve.
Consultation
There is no fee charged for your initial consultation about your Birth Trauma case. In our first meeting, we will carefully discuss the relevant obstetrical history as well as the circumstances surrounding labour and delivery. We will obtain the antenatal records, the labour and delivery records, the fetal heart tracings and the newborn records, at no cost to you. Following our careful analysis of those records, we will again meet with you to discuss our findings and move your case in the right direction, again at no cost to you.
Investigation
If concerns are identified, following our review of your Birth Trauma case and our meeting with you to discuss the records and issues, we will consult with highly trained medical experts. We seek support from these medical experts to demonstrate that the health care provided did not lead up to reasonable expectations – called a breach of the standard of care. We also seek medical support to prove that the failure to provide proper medical care resulted in your child’s Birth Injury – called “causation”. Once we have the required expert support to establish your case, we can proceed with a birth injury claim for compensation for your child and your family.
Building the case
The goal of a Birth Trauma medical malpractice claim is to get your child and your family the justice and compensation you deserve for an injury that should have been avoided. The economic and emotional burden of caring for a child injured by Birth Trauma is enormous. All affected families are in need of substantial assistance. Your Birth Trauma Lawyer must ensure all the required steps are taken to get the compensation you deserve. These cases are complex and usually take many years to prosecute. Due to the complexity of these cases, it is important that you select a Birth Trauma lawyer with both experience and credentials
Contact a birth injury lawyer today
If you and your family have been affected by Birth Trauma, Gluckstein Lawyers can help you. We have a team which includes lawyers, clerks and a client liaison who herself has experienced the entire process of a birth trauma case. Our birth injury lawyers in Toronto, Ottawa, and Niagara, Ontario have vast experience in these cases and will tirelessly advocate for your child and your family.
Contact us for a free consultation today.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit if I suspect my child has sustained a birth injury or perinatal injury?
Typically, in Ontario, you have two years from the day which the injury occurred, or the day you discovered that the injury had occurred, to bring a lawsuit or file a claim relating to the personal injury. In the case of a birth or perinatal injury, the limitation period does not start until the child reaches the age of majority, which in Ontario is 18 years old. The limitation period can be delayed even further if, when the child reaches the age of majority, he or she remains legally “incapable” of commencing litigation because of a physical, mental, or psychological condition. In this case, the limitation period does not begin to run until a Litigation Guardian is appointed for the purposes of the lawsuit.
It is best to contact a lawyer early to ensure that proper steps are taken and that deadlines are not missed. You do not have to retain a lawyer right away, but it can be helpful to learn about your legal rights early.
How will I find out what happened to my child?
Our lawyers will use a combination of resources to determine what happened in the context of a birth or perinatal injury. We will start the investigative process by obtaining the medical records and by gathering information from our clients. We will then seek out the most appropriate medical and non-medical experts to interpret and provide opinions and expertise as to whether there was a breach of the standard of care, whether that breach caused the injuries suffered, and the extent of the injuries suffered. Throughout the litigation process, we will receive further evidence as to what happened through the exchange of documents between parties and through the Examination for Discovery process.
What will legal action cost? What will I have to pay?
Generally, there are no costs to our clients throughout the course of litigation. Our firm carries the cost of litigation and any disbursements. When your matter is resolved either through settlement or at trial, our firm will take a portion of the settlement for our fees and disbursements. Our lawyers will explain the retainer and fee arrangements clearly at the initial consultation.