Birth Injuries Increase With Early Elective Deliveries
A recent survey by the hospital watchdog group, Leapfrog Inc., concluded that early deliveries – when made as an elective decision, rather than by necessity – resulted in an increased rate of birth injuries. An early elective delivery is considered a cesarean section or induction scheduled before 39 weeks without a medical reason.
Each week of a pregnancy is critical to the development of the baby’s brain, lungs and liver. Delivering too early can cause a birth injury with lifelong physical, developmental, and cognitive delays. Some times medical reasons exist to schedule a newborn delivery, including performing emergency c-sections, such as where the mother has high blood pressure, broken membranes before labor begins, or the infant shows signs of fetal distress. In those situations, medical personnel need to act quickly in order to prevent long-term harm to an infant. A failure to take prompt action may constitute medical malpractice.
But absent medical necessity, early elective deliveries happen far too frequently. As noted by the Leapfrog CEO, “Hospitals, health plans, providers, and communities need to do more to protect women and babies from this practice…Every hospital should publicly report on their rate and actively prevent the practice, and every woman planning to give birth should demand the information.”
Whether your healthcare provider schedules excessive early deliveries varies from from hospital to hospital. In Los Angeles, some hospitals report rates as low as 4%, while others as high as 29%. The organization has provided a list of hospital rates of early scheduled deliveries.
As California medical malpractice lawyers we believe this information is critical to inform women about the care they are receiving and to prevent birth injuries.
For more information, or if you believe your child may have sustained a birth injury due to the care you received from a health care professional, contact the experienced California birth injury lawyers at Bostwick & Peterson, LLP to schedule a consultation.
