What Exactly is “Birth Trauma”?

By Staff Writer

Having a baby is one of the most exciting, yet terrifying experiences of a woman’s life.  Anticipating the beautiful bundle of joy is an amazing feeling.  However, the horror stories people hear regarding what can happen during childbirth can be overwhelming.  Birth trauma is a real fact of life and unfortunately occurs more often than it should.

Birth trauma can include injuries sustained by both the mom and baby during delivery and can be mild or severe (6 to 8 out of every 1,000 births are severe).  Many of the traumatic situations that come from the delivery could have been avoided if there had not been negligence involved.

There are many risks involved that could result in a traumatic birth.  Some of these risks include:

• Delivering prematurely
• Excessive pulling when trying to get the baby out of the canal
• Prolonged labor
• A very large baby
• The mother’s pelvis isn’t adequate enough for vaginal delivery

The most common type of birth injury is soft tissue damage.  This can lead to bruising and swelling for the face, head, upper body and legs.  Bones can all fracture and break too during a traumatic delivery for various reasons.  The most severe types of birth injuries are caused by forceps or vacuums used to help assist the delivery.  These should only be used if the mother is not able to have a caesarean.

A very common injury sustained by a mother during delivery is loss of blood due to hemorrhaging and severe PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome) and postpartum due to the difficult and stressful delivery of the baby.  There is a birth trauma association that has been set up to help mothers cope with such an overwhelming ordeal.

The 5 most common types of birth injury are:

• Brain injuries
• Bone birth injury
• Cranial nerve injury
• Spinal cord injury
• Intra-abdominal birth injury

To read about these in more detail, please refer to this article titled “Understanding the 5 Types of Birth Trauma” in our knowledge center.

Almost half of all traumatic birth injuries are avoidable with simple identification and planning by medical personnel. If you or your child has experienced birth trauma due to negligence or error, please contact one of our Tennessee birth injury attorneys to discuss your case.

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