What is the difference between birth injury and birth trauma?
Birth injury and birth trauma are both terms used to describe events that can occur during labor and delivery, but there are important differences between the two. Birth injury is the term used to describe physical damage sustained by an infant during labor and delivery due to a medical practitioner’s negligence or incompetence. This negligence could include medical malpractice, such as improper techniques for forceps or vacuum extractions or administering a drug to the mother without properly monitoring its effects on the baby. Birth injury can also refer to failure to recognize a difficult labor or medical conditions that require an emergency cesarean section. Birth trauma, on the other hand, is the term used to describe physical injury to an infant due to difficult labor or medical conditions that were not caused by negligence. Birth trauma can involve either mechanical force, such as the use of medical instruments, or it can occur without mechanical aid, such as when a baby experiences shoulder dystocia or a difficult labor due to being large in size or because there is not enough amniotic fluid present. Whereas birth injury is caused by medical negligence, birth trauma is due to medical conditions that cannot always be predicted or prevented. In Texas, depending on the circumstances, either birth injury or birth trauma can be grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit.
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