What are the main types of birth injury cases?

Probably the primary type of birth related injuries occur from oxygen deprivation and that’s when the baby is coming down the birth canal and the umbilical cord gets wrapped around or stopped. What happens is the blood supply with oxygen doesn’t get to the baby. If it’s more than several minutes, then you’re going to have a brain injury in that child. It should be prevented by following the fetal monitor and the doctor, if in fact sees that the baby’s heart rate is going up, the oxygen supply is going down, he should immediately do an emergency C-section.

The next two injuries in order of frequency probably are shoulder dystocia cases where when the child gets into the birth canal, his shoulder may get caught on the pubic bone and the doctor, if he pulls that baby out, often time can damage that shoulder and particularly the nerve leading through the shoulder to the hand. Then the third is called brachial plexus and that’s when a baby has too big of a head to go through the birth canal. Again, the OB/GYN should know about this from sonograms and particularly if the mother has certain history of problems in regard to her physical ailments that will result in an enlarged head and the OB/GYN should know that ahead of time and not attempt a natural birth because the head is going to get stuck in the birth canal.