Neonatal Stroke Birth Injuries

Were you or your unborn baby the victim of medical malpractice that led to a birth injury? Did the obstetrician make an error that led to a severe neonatal stroke?

The personal injury attorneys at Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers handle medical negligence cases and can serve as your legal advocates.

Call our birth injury lawyers today at (888) 424-5757 (toll-free phone call) or use the contact form to schedule a free case evaluation to discuss your family's legal rights concerning your baby's preventable birth trauma. Let us review your confidential or sensitive information and seek justice on your behalf.

A neonatal stroke occurs whenever blood flow to an unborn child's brain is restricted or blocked, and the resulting trauma can cause permanent brain damage. In general, a neonatal stroke results when the blood supply is cut off to the brain. Both an ischemic stroke and a hemorrhagic stroke can be the result of medical negligence.

Many possible factors can be attributed to perinatal stroke, including the negligent use of delivery instruments, resulting in trauma to the baby's brain. The common signs and symptoms associated with perinatal and neonatal stroke include headaches, hemiparesis, speech or language delays, vision problems, vomiting, or restricted arm and leg movement.

Perinatal Stroke and Neonatal Stroke

Specific contributing risk factors cause a perinatal stroke before the baby's delivery. Alternatively, a neonatal stroke results from events that took place during labor and delivery.

A healthcare provider will sometimes refer to a perineal stroke as a fetal stroke or prenatal stroke. Typically, a neonatal stroke is caused by some event in the child's body suddenly disrupting normal blood flow to the infant's brain.

Typically, a neonatal stroke is a brain trauma caused by specific underlying conditions like high blood pressure, blood clot, oxygen deprivation, ruptured blood vessels, or improper care by the nursing staff during childbirth. However, numerous contributing risk factors not listed here can lead to a fetal stroke where the baby suffers catastrophic injuries.

Neonatal and perinatal strokes are categorized by when they occur, unlike hemorrhagic strokes and ischemic strokes categorized by how they occur. Hemorrhagic strokes and infants are less common and are often linked to various contributing risk factors, including head injuries caused by ruptured blood vessels during childbirth.

Perinatal strokes occur before or after childbirth but most often occur between 20 and 22 weeks of gestation up to childbirth.

Diagnosing Perinatal and Neonatal Strokes

Nurses use fetal monitoring strips to provide doctors information to diagnose signs of fetal distress adequately. When the physician recognizes the child's condition is in distress, they can move to a C-section to ensure the baby is removed quickly, avoiding adverse consequences.

The baby may endure traumatic injuries when the doctor uses vacuum extractors and forceps. Other problems resulting from traumatic injuries include cephalic pelvic disproportion, abnormal positioning, and thrombophilia.

An ultrasound can help discover prenatal stroke before childbirth by observing an amniotic fluid stain. However, what's causing the perineal stroke is not always apparent.

Some fetuses are at higher risk of a prenatal stroke due to contributing risk factors, including maternal diabetes, maternal cocaine use, infection, or the mother smoking during pregnancy.

Causes of Neonatal Strokes

An arterial ischemic stroke is the most common form of neonatal stroke, happening when a blood clot or structural abnormalities like cerebral arteriopathies or moyamoya disease restricts blood flow in the newborn's spinal cord or brain. However, the neonatal stroke might be the result of a hemorrhage or brain bleed.

Regardless of whether the cause of a neonatal stroke is natural or due to actions performed by medical staff, the response time upon discovery of a stroke can be a significant factor in the severity of injuries sustained.

Common causes of perinatal strokes that lead to a child's injury include the following.

• Preeclampsia, which is caused by high blood pressure during pregnancy
• Gestational diabetes
• Birth asphyxia, the child's brain is deprived of oxygen, which can be caused by numerous factors such as a blockage in a major blood vessel or the wrapping of the umbilical cord around the child's neck.
• Inflammation of membranes, resulting from the presence of a bacterial infection
• Blood clots
• Hemorrhaging
• Premature detachment of the placenta or any other kind of placental abruption
• Catastrophic injury to the head during labor and delivery

Many of these catastrophic injuries result from medical malpractice, where health care providers failed to take appropriate measures based on the standard of care. Therefore, doctors should understand what constitutes an increased risk factor for a life-changing perinatal stroke and monitor accordingly to avoid severe complications caused by a preventable fetal stroke.

Many neonatal strokes that will result in developmental impairment where the fetus suffered brain injury occur long before delivery, and some are not discovered until after the child is born. Therefore, when newborns suffer a catastrophic medical event like a neonatal stroke, the medical professional team must know how to diagnose and treat the condition accurately to avoid further complications.

Unfortunately, there are some signs of a neonatal stroke birth injury that medical professionals may miss. For example, seizures and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy are signs of neonatal strokes.

Legal Team Helping Your Family With Neonatal Stroke Cases

Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers LLC is a personal injury law firm committed to holding hospitals and their staff accountable for birth injuries due to medical malpractice. In addition, our neonatal stroke, birth injury lawyers represent the interests of injured children and the families who must care for them.

Has your baby suffered a neonatal stroke? Do you suspect their injuries are the result of medical malpractice? A personal injury attorney can serve as your family's legal advocate.

Our neonatal stroke birth injury attorneys can help you when you have a possible medical malpractice lawsuit. Contact us for a free consultation so an experienced attorney can help you take legal action against the medical professional whose negligence was the cause of your child's injuries.

Our personal injury lawyers can work directly with the defense attorneys or defendant's insurance company to ensure that you recover compensation after your child suffered a neonatal stroke when the doctor failed to diagnose and treat your newborn.

Our commitment is to ease this burden by seeking compensation for injuries caused by medical error and negligence so that families of children who suffer from these conditions can have the peace of mind of knowing that the cost of their child care is covered.

Birth Injuries Caused by Perinatal Stroke

Due to the nature of neonatal strokes, the resulting brain injury can permanently impact the quality of the child's life, and it may require a lifetime of care, assistance, surgeries, and therapy for treating the resulting conditions.

The cost of caring for a child with developmental or neurological problems caused by a fetal stroke often places extreme pressure on the family's finances. Therefore, it is crucial to weigh your legal options and speak with a neonatal stroke birth injury lawyer if your child has suffered from a neonatal stroke.

After a child suffered a neonatal stroke, there are numerous legal options, with family members facing a lifetime of ongoing medical bills. An attorney working on your behalf can provide immediate legal advice, file a medical malpractice lawsuit, settle the suit out of court, or take the case to trial.

Common birth injuries and conditions that result from perinatal and neonatal stroke include the following.

• Abnormal fetal presentation
• Brachial plexus palsies
• Breech presentation
• Broken ribs
• Caput succedaneum
• Cephalohematoma
• Cerebral palsy
• Clavicular fractures
• Developmental problems
• Epilepsy
• Erb's palsy
• Excessive bruising
• Facial nerve paralysis
• Gluteal lacerations
• Impaired motor function on one side of the body
• Intracranial hemorrhage
• Klumpke palsy
• Lacerations
• Long bone fractures
• Macrosomia
• Mental retardation
• Neonatal birth injuries
• Neuropraxia and axonotmesis
• Precipitous delivery
• Prematurity
• Retinal hemorrhage
• Shoulder dystocia
• Sternocleidomastoid muscle hematoma
• Subgaleal Hemorrhage
• Neonatal death

Nurses use fetal monitoring strips to provide doctors information to diagnose signs of fetal distress adequately. When distress is noticed, the obstetrician can start a C-section to ensure the baby is removed quickly, avoiding adverse consequences caused by a neonatal stroke birth injury.

Preventing Neonatal Strokes

While strokes occur most often in adults leading to significant morbidity and mortality, pediatric strokes or acquired brain injuries occur in children, newborns, and fetuses. In addition, a child's stroke can be significantly devastating when the injuries are caused through medical negligence or a delayed diagnosis.

Some doctors recommend magnesium sulfate administered to pregnant women before early preterm birth to help reduce the increased risk of cerebral palsy. However, some treatments have adverse risk effects leading to hypoxic events and neonatal strokes.

Some pediatricians recommend improving the baby's neuronal environment in the hours following birth to reduce the risk of neonatal stroke. In addition, some doctors treat the newborn with growth factors and neurotrophins that cross the blood-brain barrier, enhancing the growth of dendrites and axons.

Financial Compensation in Fetal Stroke Lawsuits and Medical Malpractice Cases

At Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, LLC, our neonatal stroke personal injury attorneys understand the emotional and financial toll of raising a child with brain damage on the family. Our access to medical experts allows us to properly assess your case and seek fair compensation for past and future expenses related to severe injuries suffered due to negligence.

Many families' lives are overwhelmed after their newborn has suffered a neonatal stroke caused by caregiver negligence. Has your newborn baby suffered a brain injury from a neonatal stroke during vaginal birth? Do you feel that the doctor or hospital staff is liable? Call our medical malpractice attorneys at (888) 424-5757 (toll-free phone number) or use the contact form today to schedule a free consultation.

If your child was injured during pregnancy or birth and you feel that the doctor or hospital delivery staff did not take proper measures to prevent or treat your child's injury, we can serve as your legal advocates. Our attorneys are located throughout the greater Chicago area and serve all of Illinois.

Consultations with our birth injury lawyers are free, and so are our services if we cannot collect compensation on your behalf through either a settlement or jury award. Many medical malpractice cases have already been resolved through million-dollar settlements to ensure families have sufficient financial compensation for providing all the treatment and caring their child requires.

Resources:

• Common Risk Factors of Perinatal and Neonatal Strokes

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