Most birth injuries occur when the nurses or doctors fail to promptly respond to a baby or mother showing obvious problems during the delivery process. Doctors are nurses responsible for delivering babies are supposed to be trained to recognize problems and to immediately respond to those problems. Everyone knows that any delay in delivery can result in devastating injuries to the baby or mother — permanent injury or death.

Delayed responses by the medical staff can occur for many different reasons such as:

• Inattention by the nursing staff (believe it or not we have one case right now where the nurses have admitted that they left a mother in labor unattended for more than one hour — sadly this baby suffered cerebral palsy, permanent brain damage and is a quadraplegic)
• Failure to properly train medical staff in the correct interpretation of the electronic fetal monitor strips (what good is this great piece of equipment if the nurses aren’t properly trained to read the strips?
• Failure to respond to common complications like a larger baby than expected or an unexpected shift in baby’s position.
• Other complications, which the medical staff should be prepared to diagnose and treat include:
• Bleeding, fetal distress, or lack of oxygen experienced by mother or infant
• Umbilical cord entrapment or compression
• Prolonged labor
• Breech presentation of the baby
• Fetal distress
• Delay in decision to do cesarean section
• Use / misuse of vacuum extractor or forceps
• Delay in recognizing or treating infections like bacterial meningitis and viral encephalitis
• Excessive water retention and weight gain by mother
• Shoulder dystocia