How to Prevent Cerebral Palsy

• Cerebral Palsy
• Preventing Cerebral Palsy

Is Cerebral Palsy Preventable during Childbirth?

The most reliable way to prevent cerebral palsy is provide the expectant mother and her baby with proper medical care and attention throughout the pregnancy, and especially during the period of labor and delivery. When the medical providers proactively monitor, diagnose, and treat conditions and risk factors that may lead to a lack of oxygen to the baby, it’s possible to prevent or minimize the risk of cerebral palsy.

Identifying Pregnancy Risks and Complications

The foremost step in preventing cerebral palsy is to make a timely and accurate diagnosis of any risk factors before or during pregnancy and take the appropriate medical steps to treat them. These steps may include:

• Thorough evaluation of the pregnant mother’s history, including previous complicated deliveries including stillbirth, miscarriage, premature rupture of membranes (PROM), premature birth, multiple births, low birth weight babies, cesarean section, or any other birth complications.


• Determining whether the mother is a high risk pregnancy resulting in the ordering of more frequent ultrasound exams and other medical tests for high risks such as advanced maternal age, multiple pregnancy, gestational diabetes, thyroid disease, preeclampsia (maternal high blood pressure), maternal infections, fibroids, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), obesity, asthma, blood disorders, or heart disease.


• Diagnosing risk factors of the baby, such as intra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR), restricted fetal growth, Rh sensitization (mismatch between mother’s and baby’s Rh factor), umbilical cord compression or prolapsed, placenta previa (partially covering the cervix), placental abruption (detachment of placenta from the uterine wall), uterine rupture, or oligohydramnios (low level of amniotic fluid).


• Periodic ultrasound exams at multiple stages during all three trimesters to monitor the growth and development of the baby, non-stress test (NST) between 38 and 42 weeks to determine the baby’s heart rate in response to movement, biophysical profile (BPP) test including amniotic fluid index measurements, fetal heart rate monitoring, ultrasound, and NSTs.

Proper and Continuous Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring

When fetal distress is suspected during pregnancy, labor or delivery, the medical team should perform continuous fetal heart rate monitoring to detect bradycardia (low heart rate), tachycardia (rapid heart rate), or abnormal changes in the heart rate. These signs of fetal distress should be accurately detected and interpreted so timely medical steps can be taken. Failure to monitor, improper or delayed monitoring, misinterpretation of readings, or failure to make timely medical interventions can increase the baby’s risk of HIE injury, potentially leading to cerebral palsy.

About Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring

Safe Use of Devices and Medications during Vaginal Delivery

Sometimes to help the baby move down the birth canal during a vaginal delivery, the medical team may decide to use forceps or vacuum extraction for an assisted delivery. Appropriate skill and care must be used with these devices because even a slightly excessive force may injure the baby’s head and increase the risk of brain damage and cerebral palsy. Similarly, during a prolonged or arrested labor, proper use of medications such as pitocin is critical to avoid brain injury resulting from too strong labor contractions.

About Pitocin/Cytotec

Cesarean Section when it is a Medical Necessity

The medical care team, including the obstetrician, anesthesiologist, neonatologist, and labor and delivery nurses should have clear coordination of when to perform a scheduled or emergency cesarean section when the vaginal delivery risks are high. Mere minutes of delay in decision-making to perform an emergency cesarean delivery can lead to severe or prolonged oxygen deprivation to the baby’s brain, resulting in hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, which could lead to cerebral palsy.

About C-Section Errors

Is Your Child’s Birth Injury the Result of Medical Malpractice?

Parents whose children suffer birth injuries want and deserve answers as to whether mistakes by the doctors and nurses contributed to the injury. At Miller Weisbrod Olesky, our award-winning birth injury attorneys have represented families all over the United States in their time of need after a birth injury. We use our skills and expertise to obtain for you and your child a medical malpractice settlement that will help provide specialized medical therapy in order to maximize the quality of life and independence of your child throughout their life.

• Were there signs of birth injury or birth complications during the pregnancy, labor, and delivery process, or presence of risk factors, which were either not recognized or properly treated?
• During the labor and delivery, were there clear indications that the baby was suffering from fetal distress, but appropriate actions were not taken by the maternal fetal specialists, obstetrician or nurses?
• Was there a delay in diagnosis of a likely premature birth that led to later complications, including brain injury?
• Did the medical team fail to order a series of tests to diagnose this birth complication in a timely manner?
• Was the decision to perform a cesarean delivery delayed leading to birth trauma during vaginal delivery or labor?
• Did the neonatal resuscitation team fail to quickly begin important breathing support?
• Should brain cooling (also called “hypothermia therapy”) have been provided to your baby, but the doctors and nurses failed to perform the appropriate tests or ignored the results of the tests?

Our birth injury attorneys have recovered millions of dollars in settlements for families of children that have suffered a birth injury. At no point in our legal intake process will we ask you to pay anything. The medical review of your case and the consultation are free. We only receive payment when you do, no matter how long or tough your case is.

Registered Nurses and Nurse-Attorneys Are a Vital Part of Our Birth Injury Team…and Yours

Most birth injury law firms will employ one or two nurses to assist the review of cases and medical research. But Miller Weisbrod Olesky offers an unmatched number of nurses and nurse-attorney employees support to both the birth injury attorneys and our clients.

Our team of registered nursing staff and nurse-attorneys bring a deep level of medical and personal insight to every client’s case. Our nursing team includes both an experienced labor and delivery nurse as well as an ICU nurse. Working closely with the rest of the team, they investigate the reasons behind a birth injury and how medical professionals breached their standard of care.

Why Should You Talk with the Highly Capable Attorneys at Miller Weisbrod Olesky?

The only way to find out if you have a birth injury case is to talk to a lawyer experienced in birth injury lawsuits. It’s not uncommon that a birth related complication results in a preventable birth injury, including cerebral palsy, but it takes a detailed expert review by a birth injury attorney of the medical records from your child’s birth to determine if the birth injury was the result of medical malpractice.

At Miller Weisbrod Olesky, a team of committed lawyers, nurses and paralegals uses our detailed medical negligence case review process to assess your child’s potential birth injury case. We start by learning more about you and your child and the status of meeting/missing developmental milestones. Then we gather medical records to determine what happened before, during pregnancy. We call in documented and proven medical experts who review your records and let us know if they think medical errors could have caused your child’s injuries.

If we feel medical negligence caused or contributed to wrongful birth in your case, we meet with you to discuss how you can receive compensation from the medical professionals who made the errors. Our birth injury attorneys have recovered millions of dollars in settlements for families of children that have suffered a birth injury.

At no point in our legal intake process will we ask you to pay anything. The medical review of your case and the consultation are free. We only receive payment when you do no matter how long or tough your case is.

Contact Our Birth Injury Lawyers