Insufficient Staffing Closes Maternity Services A November 28, 2017 memo from Airport Way Medical Clinic announced the permanent discontinuation of Maternity Services in Fort Nelson, British Columbia. The memo stated the reason being is that there is simply not enough staffing support to ensure safe obstetric care. Expecting mothers of Fort Nelson are now unable […]
Birth Injuries
Lucas Warren – The New Face of Gerber
2018 Gerber Baby Search With thousands of hopeful parents and babies seeking to be featured in Gerber ads each year, the Gerber Photo Search contest has captivated the nation every year since its 2010 conception. The 2017 search proved no different as parents submitted over 140,000 photos of their smiling babies, with the hope that […]
Patterns of Brain Injury in Babies with HIE – The “Watershed” Injury
The pattern and distribution of brain injury provide important information which, in combination with the labour and delivery records, allows us to work backward to figure out how and when a baby was injured. Importantly, it also helps to predict what parents can expect for their child’s recovery and quality of life. These injuries are […]
Life Expectancy in Birth Trauma Claims: How Experts Predict the Future
Our life span is how long each of us actually lives — our life expectancy, on the other hand, is how many more years we can we can expect to live. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a crystal ball that will allow us to determine exactly how long we are going to live. However, […]
When To Settle Birth Injury Claims
Birth Injury claims are always complex. The person suing must establish that a midwife, doctor, nurse or hospital authority was negligent and that the negligence caused the child’s injuries. In addition, there is a further complicating factor of determining what would be a reasonable quantification of the child’s damages. The litigation process can be lengthy […]
Identifying The Fetus At Risk for Neurologic Injury
Neurologic injury, and cerebral palsy, in particular, can be a devastating result of poor care during labour and delivery. However, some babies are vulnerable to injury before labour begins. This may be a result of a problem with the mother’s health, the baby’s health or the environment in which the fetus develops. Where these conditions […]
What Are the Stages of Labour?
What are the Stages of Labour? The experience of childbirth is one that is both unique and commonplace. Emotionally and physically, women can have very different experiences. For example, the amount of time involved in each step is different for each woman and for each pregnancy. However, for women who undergo a normal vaginal delivery, […]
HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOUR BABY WAS INJURED? FETAL HEART RATE PATTERNS
This is the third in a series of three articles about how medical experts determine when a newborn brain injury occurred. The first article in this series dealt with neuroimaging. The second discussed cord blood gas analysis. A newborn with signs of neurologic injury can suffer that injury any time during pregnancy, during labour and […]
A Letter to Moms of Children with Cerebral Palsy
If you are a mom, you have likely experienced “mom guilt” at one point or another. As a working mother, I have had my fair share. The more I speak with other mothers, the more I realize that it is an almost universal feeling. It is rarely rational and logical, but that feeling remains, all […]
WHAT’S A LOW APGAR SCORE (and why is it important to my baby)?
When a baby is born, one of the first things that medical professionals will do is perform an assessment known as the APGAR test. This test, which is performed at one, five and ten minutes of life, is a quick way to determine the baby’s health and if they are in need of resuscitation. A […]
Recognizing When A Child Brain Injury Is Caused
This is the second in a series of three articles about how medical experts determine when a newborn brain injury occurred. The first article explains how birth injury lawyers use medical imaging to determine the timing of a brain injury. The third will discuss fetal heart rate changes. A newborn with signs of neurologic injury […]
Proving causation on the basis of an adverse inference: Benhaim v. St-Germain
In the realm of birth injury lawsuits, one of the most important, and at times, most difficult issues for a plaintiff to establish is the legal element known as causation. In order to succeed with a birth injury claim, not only must the plaintiff prove that the doctors or nurses fell below the standard of […]
NEUROIMAGING: What is it and how can it help my baby’s birth injury lawsuit?
One of the most important tools for assessing how and when a brain injury occurred is through brain imaging. Imaging can be used to determine timing (when the brain injury happened) and causation (how the injury happened). There are three types of brain imaging: 1) Ultrasound An ultrasound is quick, readily available and risk free. […]
HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOUR BABY WAS INJURED? BRAIN IMAGING
This is the first in a series of three articles about how medical experts determine when a newborn brain injury occurred. This article will explain how birth injury lawyers use medical imaging to determine the timing of a brain injury. The second article in this series will deal with umbilical cord blood gas analysis. The […]
“What Caused My Baby’s Brain Injury?” 8 things you need to know
“What caused my baby’s brain injury?” This is probably one of the most common questions that parents ask us. This article reviews the process that the experienced birth injury lawyers at BILA follow in order to answer this important question. Most common cause of birth injury One of the most common causes of birth injury […]
