Connecticut Birth Injury FAQ 

As future parents, you anticipate childbirth as an exciting new beginning. You prepare for your new arrival, imagining a lifetime of joyful transitions and family celebrations. Sadly, if a negligent Connecticut healthcare provider causes a birth injury, it can change everything. A single wrongful act can leave a newborn with brain damage, disabilities, and lifelong medical complications. Even as you adapt to an unexpected medical outcome, you mourn the normal life your child should have had. 

They might not tell you

When a medical professional commits a negligent act that alters your family’s future, they won’t necessarily tell you. If you suspect your doctor was negligent, it’s up to you to find the truth. A Connecticut birth injury lawyer can learn the facts and protect your legal rights. They can provide the compassionate legal assistance you need and work hard to make them pay. 

We created our Connecticut Birth Injury FAQ to help you recognize the risks, identify the potential injuries, and understand your legal options. 

What is a birth injury?

A birth injury occurs when a newborn sustains harm due to a healthcare professional’s medical negligence. This can occur due to an error or omission at any point during pregnancy, labor, or delivery. As a parent, you might not realize that your child’s complications and injuries weren’t inevitable. 

What is medical negligence? 

Connecticut General Statutes, §52-184 defines medical negligence as actions that represent  “…a breach in the prevailing professional standard of care for that healthcare provider…” This applies to a doctor, nurse, midwife, medical care facility, or any other healthcare provider responsible for your care. 

What can parents do to prevent birth injuries?

Medical professionals typically commit negligent acts that cause birth-related complications. Unless a parent caused or contributed to a child’s birth injuries, they could have done nothing to prevent it.  

Expectant families usually change their lives to accommodate their growing child. Mothers alter their diets, modify daily activities, and seek regular medical care. They remain patient through months of physical discomfort, painful extended labor, and unexpected delivery challenges. When childbirth requires surgical intervention, mothers endure extended recoveries and permanent scarring. 

Birth injuries further complicate this already painful and exhausting process. They occur even when an expectant family does whatever they’re supposed to do. They happrn even when a medical professional is regularly involved in the ongoing treatment and in control of the outcome. 

What are common types of birth injuries?

No medical professional can guarantee that pregnancy, labor, or delivery will go flawlessly. Although, with the appropriate skills, attention, and treatment, they can usually manage any unexpected challenges. Injuries often occur when a medical professional fails to notice or respond to an atypical or emergency situation. 

When a medical professional discovers a birth-related injury, they may diagnose that your child has a condition, but they won’t necessarily explain why. Hospital records and medical reports often reflect the medical realities of a birth injury but they might not describe how it occurred.  

Brain damage 

Many situations can cause brain damage in a newborn. The types of brain damage sustained at birth include hemorrhage, cerebral palsy, ischemia, and other conditions. Often these occur due to inadequate oxygen, either for the mother or the child. Physicians may refer to “inadequate oxygen” as anoxia, hypoxia, birth asphyxia, and birth-related oxygen deprivation.

Dystocia

A baby and mother can sustain physical harm during a prolonged vaginal delivery. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Equality describes dystocia as difficult or obstructed labor. Shoulder dystocia occurs when a baby’s shoulders become lodged behind the mother’s pelvis. 

When this happens, a child may experience fetal distress, asphyxia, upper body injuries such as collarbone fractures, brachial plexus damage, and infection. During these difficult deliveries, mothers sometimes experience hemorrhaging, uterine ruptures and increased risk of pelvic floor trauma.  

Muscle and Tissue Injuries

Sometimes, during the birth process, negligent healthcare professionals cause lacerations, bruises, and other injuries. These can occur during either a c-section or vaginal delivery. Some newborns sustain minor injuries. Others may endure medical complications and impairments that last a lifetime. 

Kernicterus

Doctors often diagnose babies with jaundice when they’re born with too much bilirubin in their blood. While this is common, if a medical professional fails to diagnose and treat a newborn’s jaundice, it can progress to kernicterus, a rare neurological condition. Kernicterus can cause hearing loss, vision deficits, a form of cerebral palsy, delayed milestones, and other lifelong medical complications. 

Infections

Infections can be problematic for mothers and babies. If a medical professional fails to diagnose and treat a pregnant mother’s infection during pregnancy, she can pass it to her child during delivery. Babies can develop serious medical conditions when exposed to untreated hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, and other conditions. These diseases can cause eye infections, pneumonia, blood infections, blindness, brain damage, and other problems. 

How do birth injuries occur?

Birth injuries occur when a medical professional commits a medical error or fails to act to diagnose and prevent a developing problem. Labor and delivery can be challenging and unpredictable. Each patient is different and the process can last for hours. Obstetrical professionals know this. Unfortunately, they aren’t always available, prepared, alert, or ready to respond to potential complications as they occur.  

How types of medical negligence cause birth injuries?

Pregnancy and childbirth usually cause discomfort, pain, and physical distress. Women understand this, but they rely on medical professionals to identify risk factors, medical conditions, and emergencies that may affect fetal health. They expect monitoring, medical treatment, and interventions based on Connecticut’s professional standards of care. Too often, medical negligence causes preventable problems. 

• Missed conditions during prenatal care
• Delayed vaginal deliveries
• Delayed or poorly executed c-sections
• Inadequate fetal heartbeat and maternal monitoring
• Failure to monitor anesthesia complications
• Inappropriate assisted deliveries

When a medical professional’s actions deviate from the standard of care, they are responsible for the adverse outcomes. Obstetric-related medical negligence sometimes includes these acts. 

What conditions might a doctor miss during prenatal care?

When a medical professional provides routine care for a high-risk pregnancy, they can easily overlook a critical issue. Without proper diagnosis and management, adverse conditions can cause unanticipated complications throughout a pregnancy and during labor and delivery. 

• Existing medical conditions: Diabetes, high blood pressure, anemia, obesity, infections, and advanced-age pregnancies. 
• Personal habits: Food choices, drugs, alcohol, smoking, cannabis use, and vaping
• Large Fetus: May require C-section versus vaginal delivery

Medical professionals have access to targeted ultrasounds, cell screenings, lab testing, genetic testing, and a range of diagnostic technologies. If they fail to diagnose and treat a detectable condition, their action or inaction can cause or contribute to a birth injury. 

What are the risks associated with delayed vaginal delivery?

Critical delays can occur when a medical professional fails to properly monitor a patient during pregnancy. Certain circumstances such as post-term pregnancies, often require monitoring. When a pregnancy lasts beyond 42 weeks, a fetus often gains too much weight. As the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists explains, post-term pregnancies rarely harm a baby, but they have an inherent risk for complications.  

• • Shoulder dystocia: An overdue baby can grow larger than a typical newborn. During a vaginal delivery, a mother’s pelvis may become an obstruction, making it more difficult. As an obstructed birth can potentially injure the mother and the baby, medical professionals must be prepared to perform an unanticipated c-section.
  • Meconium aspiration: During a postterm delivery, the child may release a bowel movement (meconium) into the amniotic fluid. If a child inhales meconium during labor, they can develop temporary or permanent breathing problems.
  • Low amniotic fluid: When a child is overdue, the mother might not have enough amniotic fluid. This can lead to umbilical cord compression, restricted oxygen flow, and fetal heart rate issues.
  • Postmaturity Syndrome: A newborn with postmaturity syndrome may manifest a range of physical changes such as dry loose skin, long nails, excessive hair, skin discoloration, and others traits that suggest an extended pregnancy. 
  • Stillbirth

What are the risks associated with a delayed or poorly-executed c-section? 

Long before labor begins, an obstetrics professional determines whether a patient needs a c-section. When the time is appropriate, they schedule a surgery and proceed accordingly. The process doesn’t go quite as smoothly if a doctor doesn’t realize that a patient may need a surgical delivery or if they perform negligently during the surgery. 

Delayed c-sections

The birth process becomes more complicated when a planned vaginal delivery becomes an emergency c-section. This can happen when a practitioner fails to monitor a patient for adverse medical conditions that might become problematic during childbirth. Delayed c-sections also occur when a physician causes or fails to detect a non-reassuring fetal status. 

Non-reassuring fetal status, the updated term for “fetal distress,” acknowledges the potential for fetal heart changes, reduced movement, growth restriction, and meconium stained fluid. To avoid future medical issues when this occurs, healthcare professionals must be prepared to change their delivery strategy immediately.

Poorly-executed c-sections

Some physicians plan timely c-sections but they perform negligently during the surgery. Poor surgical techniques can leave a mother, child, or both with postpartum injuries. 

How do physicians conduct fetal heartbeat and maternal monitoring?

During labor and delivery, medical professionals can meet monitoring challenges with a variety of existing and emerging technologies, and traditional monitoring devices. 

• Electronic fetal monitoring (EFM): A device which monitors fetal heart rate and a mother’s contractions.  
• Ultrasonography: A portable ultrasound device used to monitor fetal heartbeat. 
• Tocodynamometer: A pressure-sensitive device for measuring contraction strength, frequency, and length during labor
• Intrauterine pressure catheter: A fluid-filled catheter to measure uterine pressure 
• Fetal scalp electrodes: For measuring fetal heart rates
• Noninvasive fetal electrocardiogram (fECG) and electromyography (EMG) monitoring: A wireless patch used to transmit fetal and maternal heart rates and uterine activity
• Pinard stethoscope: A manual device for monitoring fetal heartbeat from the abdominal surface
• Blood pressure screening: A variety of devices can monitor maternal blood pressure 
• Maternal/fetal pulse oximetry: A simple technology for monitoring mother and fetus 

With such an extensive list of available technologies and tools, doctors should never miss the signs of maternal distress or a non-reassuring fetal status. Medical professionals can miss developing situations when they fail to monitor or consistently track results, or fail to take action when appropriate.

How might anesthesia create problems for a woman during labor? 

Anesthesia makes labor pains more tolerable. It also limits a patient’s capacity to self-monitor potential complications. When anesthetized, a patient can’t tell if her labor pain is reasonable or problematic. That’s another reason why diligent monitoring is essential. It allows medical professionals to identify adverse events, even if a patient is desensitized due to anesthesia. 

While studies show anesthesia issues don’t occur frequently during labor and delivery, studies have documented the following risks:

• General anesthesia may produce more complications than a neuraxial anesthesia such as an epidural block.
• During a c-section, general anesthesia is shown to increase the risk of adverse maternal events.   
• Epidural anesthesia may affect a mothers pushing strength and effectiveness during delivery. 
• Anesthesia may prolong second stage labor and increase the need for emergency c-sections and assisted vaginal deliveries.

What is an assisted vaginal delivery?

Medical professionals sometimes use forceps or vacuum extraction devices during difficult vaginal deliveries. As doctors rarely use these devices, they can prove risky to both mother and child. 

What are the risks of forceps-assisted deliveries?

Forceps resemble salad tongs with large spoon-shaped ends. Doctors sometimes use them during prolonged labor. They make it easier to grasp a child’s head and pull them from the birth canal. 

As the Cleveland Clinic Forceps Delivery page explains, doctors use forceps in only .5 percent of vaginal births. As practitioners rarely use them, this lack of experience could explain the potential for maternal and fetal harm.  

Risks to the mother

• Vaginal or rectum tears
• Pelvic organ prolapse
• Urination difficulties and incontinence

Risks to the child

• Facial and head injuries
• Eye trauma
• Temporary facial nerve palsy and muscle weakness
• Skull fracture
• Bleeding within the skull

What are the risks of a vacuum extraction-assisted delivery?

Doctors perform vacuum-extraction deliveries with a vacuum-powered device that resembles a large suction cup. During the final stage of a difficult delivery, a medical care provider attaches the cup to the child’s head. A vacuum effect helps guide the baby through the birth canal. 

As with forceps deliveries, vacuum extractions can cause fetal injuries. 

• Scalp wounds
• Shoulder dystocia
• Skull fractures
• Bleeding within the skull

Doctors can only use vacuum extraction when a baby is exiting the birth canal head first. As they use them more frequently than forceps, they have more opportunities to gain experience and expertise without causing harm.

How do I get compensation for a birth injury claim? 

In Connecticut, you file a lawsuit alleging medical negligence. Once filed, your lawsuit proceeds through the courts. With medical negligence suits, you must comply with all procedural steps outlined under Connecticut Court Practice and Procedures, §52-190a. 

• Certificate of merit: When you file a medical negligence lawsuit, you must submit a Certificate of Merit confirming your good faith effort to make a reasonable inquiry into the alleged medical negligence. You and your attorney must sign your certificate. 
• Signed medical opinion: You must also submit a signed opinion from a similar healthcare provider, confirming that there is evidence of medical negligence. 
• Statute of limitations:  You must file your lawsuit within two years from the date your injury occurred or lose your right to make a claim. 
• Statute of repose: You have a maximum of three years to file under some circumstances. This may apply if you didn’t immediately discover that you sustained an injury due to a negligent medical act. 
• Statutes of limitations for Minors: A minor or mentally incapacitated individual may have an extended time period for filing a lawsuit. An extended statute of limitations may also apply when a patient dies due to medical negligence.
• Ninety day extension: Once you file your petition, the court will grant an automatic 90 day extension beyond your statute of limitations. This gives you time to comply with the “reasonable inquiry” mandate.

Do I need an attorney to file a birth injury claim?

You should never try to handle a Connecticut birth injury case without a lawyer working on your behalf. Birth injury claims are far more complicated than traditional liability claims. As with all medical negligence cases, birth injury claims involve convoluted legal and damage issues and strict procedural standards. 

A seasoned Connecticut birth injury attorney understands these types of cases. They know how to assess the liability issues and evaluate the damages. They do whatever it takes to work through the complications. 

Contact a Connecticut birth injury lawyer

If a medical professional injured you or your child, contact a Connecticut birth injury attorney. When you schedule a free consultation, you can discuss your case and learn more about your legal rights and options. A seasoned legal professional will determine if they can help you.