Welcoming a new baby is often one of the most joyous times in a family’s life. Sometimes, in spite of all the best-laid plans, something goes wrong, and a birth injury occurs. In Texas, frequently seen birth injuries to babies include skull injuries and cerebral palsy. There’s another category of birth injuries as mothers are also sometimes injured during delivery.
Caesarean sections, or C-sections, are procedures that allow women to deliver awkwardly positioned babies. They’re also used when the mother is in danger of serious complications. Over 1 million babies are delivered via C-section annually.
There are two kinds of C-sections. The first is elective, meaning that the procedure was chosen as the method of delivery in advance. The second is emergency, meaning that the C-section had to be performed because of complications during delivery.
C-sections are some of the most common surgeries performed in the U.S. However, as with all surgeries, they can result in problems. The most serious of these is the death of the baby or mother. Babies may be cut with surgical implements by accident during the process. C-sections have also been implicated in higher rates of asthma in children, and babies delivered by caesarean are less likely to breastfeed. For mothers, the recovery from a C-section can be much longer and more difficult than natural birth. Infection is the most common complication for mothers.
Most doctors work hard to achieve the best outcomes for their patients, and not every case of C-section complication is malpractice. However, some doctors make errors that are just unreasonable. They make poor decisions or execute decisions poorly, resulting in serious problems for mothers and babies. After a birth injury, it may be important to have an experienced advocate working to help the family get justice.
