How to Know If a Medical Mistake Was Made During Childbirth

The day you are blessed with a child is one that you will never forget. Bringing life into the world is always a joyous occasion for the baby’s parents and their loved ones. The only thing that could disrupt your happiness is if your newborn had any kind of medical complications during birth. Unfortunately, childbirth complications that occur as a result of medical mistakes are not a rarity.

Doctors make mistakes all the time, and some of these mistakes could cost your child their health. If your baby suffered from any medical issues during birth, then it is your right to know if that was a result of medical negligence and act accordingly. Here is how you can tell if a medical mistake was made during childbirth and what to do in such circumstances.

Understanding Childbirth Injuries

The entire childbirth experience, from labor to delivery, can be incredibly overwhelming and hectic. It is a doctor’s job to try and make the whole process as easy and comfortable as possible for both the mother and the baby. Sometimes, emergencies happen during labor. It is not always a result of medical malpractice, but in many cases it is.

If the mother or her child suffer from certain injuries during childbirth, it is important to understand whether it is due to an emergency that nobody could have seen coming, or if it is the result of a medical mistake. Common childbirth complications include excessive bleeding for the mother, infections for either the mother or baby, or tears and broken bones. The severity and circumstances surrounding such complications can lead you to identify whether or not they were a result of a medical mistake.

How Medical Negligence Occurs

Spotting medical negligence during childbirth can be quite challenging. Sometimes, hiring lawyers and going to court is the only way to prove that something went wrong during labor. If the mother or her newborn suffered an injury during birth, trying to identify whether that injury was a result of a medical mistake, or if it was caused by health complications that could not have been foreseen, is no easy task. However, there are several medical negligence patterns that one should be familiar with to be able to spot the malpractice or negligence if it does occur.

If there are severe complications during childbirth, the medical professional attending to the case should be able to spot them. If they fail to notice those complications or dismiss them for any reason, then it is probable malpractice. Similarly, if the doctor does not carefully examine the patient’s history or fail to report any problem that arises during labor to senior medical staff, this is considered medical negligence, which could possibly be life-threatening to the mother and her baby.

Signs of Malpractice

Medical malpractice is not something that can easily go unseen. Some patients may not be able to spot it straight away on certain occasions, but after childbirth, obvious signs will start to appear if medical negligence has caused any harm to the newborn. Even if you do not understand the jargon associated with medical emergencies or childbirth complications, you can quickly notice if malpractice had happened if, all of a sudden, your newborn needs special treatment, and the medical staff look frantic.

Of course, you would need to give the doctors the benefit of the doubt, but if those signs are accompanied by delays in explanation as to what caused the complications, then it is a clear-cut sign that the medical professionals have made a mistake and they are not ready to reveal it to the patient. 

How to Recover from Medical Mistakes

Recovering from medical mistakes made during childbirth is a tough task, physically and emotionally. After enduring the health complications that childbirth has caused you or your newborn, it would best to try and get back on track and focus on recovery.

A lot of the time, newborns can quickly and completely recover from minor mistakes that occurred during birth. Other times, it can take some hard work or even lifelong treatment to cope with the injury. Either way, you should always claim your legal rights if you were a victim of medical malpractice in order to get the closure you or your child needs to start over.

Childbirth is hard enough as it is. Suffering from complications as a result of medical negligence only makes things even harder on the newborn and their parents. If you think you have suffered from medical malpractice, make sure you take some serious action against the medical professionals who caused it. Do not take any injuries you sustained during childbirth at face value; demand an explanation for everything so you can fully understand what happened.