Sometimes, a birth injury can be caused by an infection. What may be a minor, even inconsequential infection in adults may be life-threatening to children. Some infections end up causing cerebral palsy in infants.
How Does it Happen?
If your child’s Cerebral Palsy was traced back to an infection that they acquired at some time before, during or after being born, it likely had some distinctive effects. If it caused Cerebral Palsy, inflammation of the brain or of the tissues surrounding the brain likely caused the damage that led to your child developing Cerebral Palsy. Infections can be the result of many different circumstances.
Natural Causes
Every day and every moment of those days your body is fighting back against bacteria that are trying to consume it or make their homes in it. When they succeed, your body becomes infected. There are many different ways that a child can end up suffering the types of infections that cause Cerebral Palsy, not all of them due to anything a doctor did or didn’t do. Not all cases of infants suffering Cerebral Palsy injuries due to infections can be sued over.
Equipment
If the equipment used for the delivery or care of your child wasn’t cleaned properly, it may have served as the means by which the infection was transmitted. This may come down to negligence on the part of the healthcare facility, the staff or the supplier that provided the medical equipment to the doctor and healthcare facility.
Doctor or Staff Negligence
The doctor or staff may be responsible for exposing your child and, in some cases, you may specifically end up suing them. If you sue the staff, you’ll usually be suing the healthcare facility itself, as the staff does not carry their own individual malpractice insurance. The doctors at hospitals are usually on contact and carry their own malpractice insurance. You’ll be suing their insurance company if you go after them for negligence.
Your attorney can give you much more information on how some infections that cause Cerebral Palsy are the results of medical negligence. There have also been cases where contaminated medical supplies have been to blame and that opens up an entirely new situation where you may end up going after a distributor or manufacturer. Talk to an attorney. The consultation is usually free and you can get information from them—including information about how long you have left to sue—that could persuade you to sue or not to sue.