A patient-safety group said last week that early elective deliveries can put infants at risk of birth injuries.

According to a report published by the Leapfrog Group, a voluntary program dedicated to educating America’s health industry about health care safety, elective early deliveries carry a number of risks. The watchdog group says some hospitals are delivering more than 40 percent of newborn babies early for no medical reason.

A hospital survey conducted by Leapfrog shows most hospitals are allowing the practice, which results in higher birth injury and infant mortality rates. An early delivery is done by cesarean section, a surgical procedure performed at the mothers abdomen. Medical experts said infants must not be born before 39 weeks, unless their health care provider deemed it medically necessary. Infants need at least 39 weeks because the brain and lungs are not completely developed until the last few weeks of gestation.

To discuss filing a birth injury lawsuit with an experienced attorney, contact a Philadelphia C-section injury lawyer of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 today to learn more.

A London hospital has agreed to pay a $2,157,975 settlement in a birth injury lawsuit.

According to court documents, obstetrician Michael Gannon and Mullingar General Hospital have admitted negligence in the circumstances surrounding the birth of 4 year-old Luke Miggin. Based on reports, Gannon failed to notice a decrease in Miggin’s heart rate on a cardiotocographic trace. The doctor also failed to consider an abnormal CTG trace and failed to carry out a Cesarean section, the lawsuit says.

Miggin was born by forceps delivery, but required artificial resuscitation. Miggin was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a non-progressive motor condition that causes physical disability in human development. The child is now confined to a wheelchair and requires 24-hour care.

The $2,157,975 settlement was announced Tuesday, and will also include an additional $300,000 to go to Luke’s special accommodation needs. It will be reconsidered on the basis of a forthcoming judgement regarding how the court should deal with Miggin’s housing requirements.

To discuss filing a birth injury lawsuit with an experienced attorney, contact a Philadelphia birth injury lawyer of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 today to learn more.

Last month, a Virginia family was awarded $2.3 million in a birth injury lawsuit against the miwdife that delivered their son.  The trial lasted for five days and the Norfolk, Virginia jury deliberated for five hours before coming to a decision.  In addition to the $2.3 million verdict, the child’s mother was awarded $60,000 to make up for medical expenses.

The boy was born in 2006 and now suffers from permanent nerve damage resulting in a permanently disabled right arm.  The lawsuit claimed that during the delivery the midwife practice negligence by pulling on the child’s head and arms to remove him from the birth canal.  As a result, the delivery was complicated by shoulder dystocia.  Shoulder dystocia is when an infant’s shoulder becomes caught on the mother’s pubic bone and is unable to come out of the birth canal as easily as normal.  The family’s midwife was recommended to them by the mother’s obstetrician/gynecologist.

If you or a loved one has been the victim of hospital or doctor negligence resulting in an infant birth injury, contact the Philadelphia birth injury lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 800-876-LAWYER today to learn more about your rights.

Lt. Col. Shad Deering and staff at the Charles Andersen Simulation Center designed a simulator mannequin to help train doctors and prevent birth injuries.  The simulator, Mobile Obstetric Emergencies Simulator, is a full-sized mannequin that shows signs of maternal and fetal distress and simulates birth emergencies.

The mannequin will be used in hospitals to educate residents on what can go wrong in child delivery, for example, fetal distress or post-partum hemorrhaging.  In cases such as fetal distress, it is important for doctors to be able to recognize this in time to order a forceps,vacuum or c-section delivery.  Officials expect using the mannequins will save the Department of Defense money by reducing the chance of birth injuries.

Contact the Philadelphia birth injury lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 if you or your child have been the victim of a birth injury caused by medical malpractice or hospital negligence.

Although birth injuries typically affect infants, mothers are also at risk of suffering from health complications after delivery.  One of the most common complications a mother can suffer is a birth infection.  The most common type of birth infections for mothers is Group B Strep.

Streptococcal infections involve bacteria entering the body and attacking tissues, usually in the throat.  If a mother is infected with GBS, their child could also be seriously affected by the infection.  GBS is the primary cause of death in newborns around the world.

One main cause of birth infections and GBS in mothers is through the use of unsterilized equipment at hospitals.

If you are a mother that suffered medical complications from a birth infection caused by hospital negligence, contact the Philadelphia birth infection lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 to learn more about your rights.

Child birth can be very dangerous for both the mother and the child.  One birth injury that many mothers are not aware of is the possibility of their child fracturing a bone.  Bone fractures in newborns usually occur in larger infants due to a prolonged labor or the use of forceps.

Approximately 9 percent of large newborns suffer from a bone fracture.  The bone most frequently fractured is the clavicle, also known as the collarbone.  Sometimes these bone fractures occur on accident and other times they can be prevented.  If doctors recognize that a baby is on the larger side they can take steps, like not prolonging a delivery or not using forceps, to reduce the possibility of an infant having a bone fracture.

If your child suffered a bone fracture at birth that could have been prevented, contact the Philadelphia bone fractures lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 to learn more about your rights.

According to a recent study conducted by medical researcher Angelia Eick, newborns whose mothers have received a flu shot during pregnancy are less likely to be admitted to a hospital with a respiratory illness in their first six months.  Eick, formerly of Johns Hopkins, works for the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Eick and a team of researchers studied mothers and children on Navajo and White Mountain Apache Indian reservations because members of the Native American population are more prone to respiratory infections.  1,160 mother/infant pairs gave blood samples before and after three flu seasons and were monitored for flu symptoms.  The team concluded that babies whose mothers had the flu vaccination were 41 percent less likely to contract the flu and 39 percent less likely to be hospitalized for a respiratory illness than babies whose mothers were not vaccinated.  Furthermore, babies whose mothers had been vaccinated were found to have higher levels of flu antibodies.

“Although influenza vaccination is recommended for pregnant women to reduce their risk of influenza complications, these findings provide support for the added benefit of protecting infants from influenza virus infection up to six months,” stated Eick.

If your infant has become ill due to a hospital’s negligence, contact the Philadelphia birth infection lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 to learn more about your rights.

On October 2, the American Academy of Pediatrics will be presenting this year’s Virginia Apgar Award to St. Louis neonatologist William Keenan at their National Conference & Exhibition in San Fransisco, California.  The award is given to an individual who has dedicated their career to the wellbeing of infants.

Keenan is a professor of pediatrics at Saint Louis University and a neonatologist at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center.  He was a pioneer in the field of neonatal resuscitation used on babies suffering from asphyxia.  The curriculum was adopted by the AAP and the American Heart Association to train doctors and nurses in the life-saving technique.  Neonatal resuscitation is used in approximately one out of ten births in the United States for babies who are deprived of oxygen before, after or during delivery.  Since the technique was adopted in 1987 the infant morality rate in the U.S. has dropped by nearly 70 percent.

If your child suffered from asphyxia at birth due to medical negligence, contact the Philadelphia asphyxia lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 to learn more about your rights.

Johnson & Johnson recently announced the launch of a campaign called “Every Mother, Every Child”.  ”Every Mother, Every Child” is a five year program that will help an estimated 400 million women and children in over 50 countries.

The program has four distinct parts.  ”Mobile Health for Mothers” will give cell phones to 20 million pregnant women in Nigeria, South Africa, China, India and Bangladesh that will send messages with prenatal health information and receive calls from health experts.

“Research and Development Innovations” will involve research on HIV and tuberculosis treatments including looking for a way to prevent the diseases from passing from mother to child.

“Intestinal Worms and Children” will donate 200 million doses of the drug mebendazole a year to treat intestinal worms.

Lastly, “Safe Birth Programs” will provide birth and prenatal health education classes in hopes of preventing birth injuries like asphyxia.

If you or someone you know has suffered from asphyxia at birth, contact the Philadelphia asphyxia lawyers of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 to learn more about your rights.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends doctors give mothers undergoing a C-section antibiotics before the surgery, in order to prevent possible birth-related infections.  Generally, antibiotics are administered after the surgery because it was once believed that the antibiotics could harm the child if given to the mother before delivery.  Now, medical researchers at the ACOG have concluded that data shows newborns are not harmed if mothers take antibiotics while pregnant.

Dr. William H. Barth, chair of the ACOG’s committee on Obstetric Practice, stated, “We’re recommending that all women who undergo cesarean get a preventative course of antibiotics before the surgery starts.  Ideally, this should happen within 60 minutes of surgery”.  Officials at the ACOG say that the recommendation does not extend to pregnant women who are already taking antibiotics for another reason.

Infections are the most common form of complication from C-section deliveries.  Ten to forty percent of women who undergo C-sections will develop an infection.  Only one to three percent of women who deliver vaginally will suffer from birth-related infections.

If you or someone you love has suffered from a C-section-related complication, contact the Philadelphia C-sections attorneys of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. at 215-238-1130 to learn more about your rights.