Necrotizing Enterocolitis

• Birth Injury
• Necrotizing Enterocolitis

What Is Necrotizing Enterocolitis?

Necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, is a serious disease that affects the intestines of premature babies. NEC happens within the first 2 weeks of life in babies who are fed formula instead of breast milk. Hospitals routinely give baby formula to premature babies. Tragically, some of the most popular brands of formula used by hospitals are toxic and can lead to this fatal gastrointestinal injury.

If perforations in the intestines develop, bacteria may leak into the abdomen or bloodstream. This can lead to sepsis, and emergency surgery may be required to repair holes or remove portions of the intestines. Surgical repairs may lead to life-long complications and disabilities. In approximately 30% of cases of NEC in premature babies, the result is death.

What Causes Necrotizing Enterocolitis?

Premature infants have lungs and intestines that are weak and less mature than those of full-term babies. This means premature babies do not move blood and oxygen around like they should. This leads to problems breaking down food and fighting infections.

NEC Risk Factors

NEC affects just one in 2,000 births. It can happen in any newborn baby, but it’s most common in premature babies who weigh less than 3.25 lbs.

Others who may be at risk include:

• High-risk or premature babies who are fed formula by mouth or tube
• Those who had a difficult delivery or have lowered oxygen levels
• Infants who have too many red blood cells in circulation
• Babies with existing gastrointestinal infections
• Seriously ill infants and those who’ve received a blood transfusion

What Are Symptoms of NEC?

Symptoms differ from child to child. A premature infant who has NEC will develop the following symptoms within the first two weeks:

• Changes in the external color of the stomach area
• Swollen or bloated belly
• Feedings that stay in the stomach and don’t move through the intestines
• Green fluid in the stomach
• Green/Yellow bilious vomit
• Diarrhea
• Bloody stool
• Trouble breathing, low heart rate, or sluggishness

Diagnosing Necrotizing Enterocolitis

Your child’s doctor will take an X-ray of their abdomen and perform blood tests, usually in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

If NEC is present, the X-ray will show gas or air bubbles in the wall of their intestine. The doctor may insert a needle into your baby’s abdomen. If fluid leaks out, that’s a sign there’s a hole in their intestinal wall.

Blood tests for infants with NEC show low white blood counts. A low white blood cell count means your baby’s ability to fight infection is weakened.

Treating Necrotizing Enterocolitis

This depends on a few things, including how premature your baby is, their overall health and medical history, and how far the infection has spread. This is a rapidly advancing condition so time is of the essence and treatment must start within hours of a suspected case. Your doctor may perform the following:

• Stop feedings
• Insert a tube through their nose into their stomach to remove fluid and keep their stomach empty
• Start IV fluids to keep them nourished and hydrated
• Give antibiotics to fight infection
• Take regular X-rays to monitor the condition
• Provide extra oxygen or a breathing machine, if their belly is too swollen

NEC is not contagious so treating physicians do not separate them from other babies in order to stop the spread, but to protect the already compromised infant from getting any other exposures to infection. If your baby does not get better with treatment, or has a hole in their intestine, they will need surgery.

This involves removing dead tissue (Necrotic) and the parts of the intestine that have ruptured or are about to rupture. Children who have surgery may need to have their intestine or bowel connected to an opening in the abdomen. This is called an “ostomy.”

What’s the Outlook for NEC?

Most infants with this condition fully recover. In some cases, the bowel is scarred or it narrows. This may lead to a future blockage. NEC can cause short gut syndrome, growth issues/failure to thrive and poor neurodevelopment. 50% of surviving children can expect long term complications.

Short bowel syndrome is a condition in which your body is unable to absorb enough nutrients from the foods you eat because you don't have enough small intestine. The small intestine is where the majority of the nutrients you eat are absorbed into your body during digestion.

Short bowel syndrome can occur when:

• Portions of the small intestine have been surgically removed. Conditions that may require surgical removal of large portions of the small intestine include Crohn's disease, cancer, traumatic injuries and blood clots in the arteries that provide blood to the intestines.
• Portions of the small intestine are missing or damaged at birth. Babies may be born with a short small intestine or with a damaged small intestine that must be surgically removed.

Babies who’ve had a large piece of their intestine removed in surgery may not be able to absorb nutrients normally. In the most severe cases, they may need a bowel transplant in order to live.

The attorneys of Miller Weisbrod Olesky are actively reviewing and preparing to litigate cases of premature babies suffering Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) as a result of baby formula feedings. Many of these cases are preventable – there are safer alternatives that can be used in place of cow’s milk formula. These cases will be handled in all 50 states by our firm as the litigation grows.

Miller Weisbrod Olesky has an extensive national practice and has represented families in dozens of states over the years in birth injury and mass tort cases. We are currently investigating claims involving premature infants who underwent surgical intervention or died due to NEC after receiving formula during hospitalization. Call us today for a free case evaluation at (888) 987-0005.

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

Parents whose children suffer from Necrotizing Enterocolitis related birth trauma or birth complications want and deserve answers as to the cause of their child’s birth injury and whether mistakes by the doctors and nurses contributed to the injury.

• 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 obstetrician or nurses?
• Was there a delay in diagnosis of Necrotizing Enterocolitis that led to later complications?
• Did the medical team fail to order a series of tests to diagnose this birth injury in a timely manner?
• 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 national birth injury attorneys have extensive experience in this and all areas of birth injury medical malpractice. The lawyers and nurses at Miller Weisbrod Olesky will help you determine if mistakes of the medical providers caused a birth injury to your child, including Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE) or cerebral palsy.

Our award-winning birth injury attorneys represent families all over the United States in their time of need after a wrongful birth. 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.

Sometimes families are reluctant to contact a medical malpractice lawyer. It’s also not uncommon for parents to feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities they encounter in caring for their injured child and worried that they will not be able to help out in a lawsuit involving their child’s birth injury. Our birth injury attorneys and nursing staff will address these hesitations and concerns, so you can focus on your child and maximizing their care.

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