If you’re considering filing a birth injury lawsuit, you’ve probably heard the term hypoxia. Hypoxia is one of the most common causes of injuries that occur during the process of being born. Unfortunately, it’s also easily avoidable, in some situations, but ends up causing a child to suffer, nonetheless.

What It Is

Hypoxia simply means a lack of oxygen. It commonly occurs when a child is strangulated in some way while they’re being born. Sometimes, the umbilical cord will become wrapped around the child’s throat and sometimes the child will suffer because some sort of force was used to remove them from the birth canal. This isn’t the same as choking, which occurs when something obstructs your airflow from the inside of your body; choking on food, for instance.

A Texas family is suing over a delayed C-section that they hold led to their child suffering injuries. According to Injury Lawyer News, the family is suing because the mother was not informed that delaying the C-section would possibly lead to a greater chance of injuries being visited on the infant. The case names several different defendants.

The delayed C-section, according to the lawsuit, resulted in the child suffering brain injuries. These types of injuries never heal, of course, and that has big implications for the person who suffers them. The lawsuit is being filed on behalf of the child.

Birth injuries can occur for a wide variety of reasons. In some cases, birth injuries happen because of a genetic predisposition, because of an illness or because of something that occurs inside the womb that could not have been predicted. There are cases where medical negligence ends up being the cause of a birth injury, as well, and these sometimes could have been prevented.

Genetics

Cerebral palsy is one of the most common conditions that results from birth injuries to the brain. Birth injuries to the brain can sometimes manifest because of a genetic predisposition. For instance, the brain may simply not form correctly, causing scenarios such as the brain cells failing to migrate to the correct position in the brain or scenarios when brain cells do not form at all. Should this occur in certain areas of the brain, it can cause the symptoms of cerebral palsy.

Children who suffer with cerebral palsy oftentimes suffer with other difficulties, as well. The reason for this is that cerebral palsy is the result of brain injuries during birth. Oftentimes, these brain injuries cause difficulty beyond what cerebral palsy itself causes.

The brain injury that causes cerebral palsy affects the area of the brain that allows you to control your muscles and that provides motor function. Oftentimes, a child who suffers a cerebral palsy inducing brain injury also suffers injuries to the brain that affect other abilities. For example, approximately half of the people with cerebral palsy injuries also have some cognitive impairment. This doesn't mean that they are severely impaired, necessarily. In fact, some people with cerebral palsy end up to go on and get advanced degrees, but they may have to work much harder than other people to achieve such goals.

Everyday Issues

Among the issues that people with cerebral palsy often deal with our problems speaking, problems hearing and problems swallowing. These oftentimes accompany CP disorders. In some cases, a person may have such severe swallowing disorders that they have to be fed through a tube for their entire life. In other cases, there are difficulties that are harder to assess.

Birth injuries that cause cerebral palsy are always investigated. Immediately following the diagnosis of cerebral palsy, scans, blood tests, lab tests and physical examinations will be conducted to determine how the child came to sustain the brain injury. It may turn out that negligence was a primary cause of the brain injury or it may turn out that the brain injury was the result of an unavoidable circumstance of the birth, pregnancy or conditions directly after birth. No matter what happens, parents in this situation are understandably distressed. Finding information is important.

A recent article in the Huffington Post related an Anat Baniel—a form of massage—practitioner's success dealing with a patient with very severe cerebral palsy symptoms. There are some success stories that involve using massage as a way to treat this disorder and it makes sense. Cerebral palsy oftentimes involves very painful and debilitating spasms and, of course, massage can address those directly.

If you have a child with CP, it's likely that they're going to have some degree of compromised hearing among their symptoms. They may also have speech difficulties, which arise from not being able to hear their own voices when they talk and not being able to hear the nuances of how words are pronounced. There are other symptoms of CP that cause speech difficulties, as well, and they come with their own challenges and treatments. For hearing loss or impairment, however, there are some very successful treatments that can help.

When cerebral palsy is being discussed, it's important to remember that the cause of this disorder can never be cured. It's also important to remember that there are many different types of this particular disorder. For example, dyskinetic cerebral palsy has its own set of symptoms, as does ataxic cerebral palsy. The different therapies available are sometimes appropriate for sufferers of any type of cerebral palsy and sometimes only appropriate for sufferers of one specific type of cerebral palsy.

Getting Help

The first, and the best source of information about cerebral palsy that you should use is your doctor. The doctor will be able to tell you what type of therapies your child may benefit from, taking into consideration what type of cerebral palsy your child suffers from. There are actually many different options for therapy and, by taking advantage of those that have been proven effective and those that are new, you can provide your child with the best possible level of care.

If you're considering suing for a birth injury, you'll want to talk to a lawyer as soon as possible. There are time limitations on how long after the fact you can sue, so you have to make sure that you're on the right side of them. If you wait too long, you could miss your chance.

The Beginning

The first thing a lawyer will usually want is a summary of your situation. Sometimes you can give it to them over the phone and sometimes you can contact them online. They'll just want the basics. If it seems like you might have a case, they'll want you to come in. A Texas cerebral palsy lawyer will usually offer this consultation service for free. This is where they'll get more information about your potential claim.

In some cases, cerebral palsy in infants is very difficult to detect. Increasingly, however, better medical technology is making it easier to determine whether or not an infant suffered this brain injury during the birthing process, or before, and that is welcome news for parents who have children who are affected. Of course, there is no real treatment for a brain injury, but knowing sooner, rather than later, can mean that the family is better prepared to deal with the consequences of this disorder.

Understanding the Disorder

CP occurs because of a brain injury. The most significant effects of this brain injury manifest as diminished muscle control and uneven muscle tone. In an infant, it's easier to detect the uneven muscle tone than it is the diminished coordination as all infants tend to achieve milestones of movement and coordination at their own rates. For instance, one of the characteristic symptoms of ataxic cerebral palsy is the gait. Obviously, because the infant won't be walking for a long time, other forms of detection will have to be used to identify this, and other types, of CP in an infant.