When you think about birth injuries, you may think that parents notice them immediately after their babies are born. While it is true that some birth injuries are visible right away, there are others which remain obscured from view until well after the baby is born. Birth injuries come in many forms, and the ways in which they reveal themselves to parents vary depending upon the type of injury that the child has experienced.
One way in which some parents discover that their babies were injured during labor and delivery is delay in reaching developmental milestones. While each child does develop at his or her own rate, there are general guidelines that provide a range within which almost all babies do things like vocalizing, making eye contact, rolling over, crawling, walking, and so on. Your pediatrician can help you to determine whether your baby is simply taking his or her time with a particular milestone or whether a delay might indicate that something more serious is going on.
Seizures, tremors, or other abnormal or spastic body movements are another sign that a child may have experienced a birth injury. Whenever any of these things happen, it is important to let your child’s pediatrician know about them right away so that they can look into what is causing the seizures or abnormal movements. Seizures and abnormal movements have numerous causes, just one of which is that the child was injured at birth, and prompt medical attention can ensure that your child gets the care that they need as soon as possible.
Developmental delays, seizures, and abnormal body movements are just some of the things which may indicate that a child experienced a birth injury. While you are working with your pediatrician to address these issues, be sure to think back to your birth experience and consider whether any risk factors for birth injury were present at that time. If forceps or a vacuum extractor were used during your delivery, there is an increased chance that your child was injured. Also, if you ended up having an emergency cesarean birth, try to recall the details of how that decision was made by medical staff, and how much time passed between the decision to operate and the actual surgery. A variety of birth injuries can be caused by delay in performing an emergency c-section, so if that was a part of your birth experience, it is possible that your child’s current condition indicates that they were harmed by the delay. Some of these details may be difficult to remember, but others are likely to remain clear in your memory, such as whether your baby appeared to be blue or purple and limp or silent upon delivery instead of coming into the world red-faced and crying. These details may indicate a heightened risk of birth injury or birth trauma. If you recall things from your labor and delivery that might have increased the chance that your child experienced a birth injury, tell your pediatrician right away so that they can explore that possibility.
Giddens Law Firm, P.A.: Helping Families with Birth Injuries throughout Mississippi
If your child was injured at birth, a Mississippi Birth Injury Attorney may be able to help you pursue a claim for damages. To learn more about how the Mississippi Personal Injury Attorneys of the Giddens Law Firm, P.A. can help you with your personal injury claim, please call our office today, at (601) 355-2022.