Birth injury concerns mount as hospitals risk understaffing

There is an assumption that, with advances in medical science, the risks of birth injury and pregnancy related death are so greatly reduced as to be negligible. Recent evidence suggests this might be a misguided assumption.

While there is no cause for alarm, as pregnancy fatalities are still rare, there has been a recent increase in the number of women dying from pregnancy associated problems.

The latest available statistics show that between 2000 and 2002, 261 women died from complications associated with pregnancy. This is a small rise on the figure of 242 deaths in the previous three-year period.

Statistics show that ‘some form of sub-optimal care’ - something that can often be associated with medical negligence - is attributable to 66% of the pregnancy related deaths recorded.

It is a disturbing statistic, showing that a large proportion of deaths could possibly have been avoided had the women received better medical care.

As the safe-keepers of new life, pregnant women certainly deserve a higher level of maternity care. There is a risk that in an increasingly target-driven health service, which is currently suffering a shortage of midwives, society is in danger of forgetting the sanctity and primacy of mothers.
More Maternity Professionals Needed
There are other causes for concern in Britain’s Maternity Services, not least the current shortage of midwives. The Royal College of Midwives believe that a further 10,000 midwives are needed to provide adequate maternity care to mothers in Britain.
When considering the gaping discrepancy between the actual number of midwives in the country and the number deemed necessary, some troubling questions are raised.

Not least among them is an inevitably increased risk of birth injuries to both mothers and babies. With birth injury compensation claims already forming nearly two-thirds of major NHS medical negligence compensation payouts each year, the need for action is clearly pressing.

Problems associated with the present shortage of midwives are in danger of being compounded by a significant fall in the number of consultant obstetricians. Statistics from The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists highlight the urgent need to buck the downward trend. They estimate that there needs to be a five per cent increase, annually, in the recruitment of new obstetricians.

Compensating the true cost of a birth injury
A recent study by the Healthcare Commission showed that over half of women who give birth in NHS hospitals are periodically left alone during childbirth. It also found that less than half of those surveyed had one midwife providing continuity of care throughout their labour. This issue of continuity of care is a potentially contributing factor in the incidence of birth injury, something recognised by the government’s recent pledge to ensure all women have continuous care during labour by 2009.

Birth injury compensation claim payouts can often seem high if they’re only read at the level of a newspaper headline. However, when one considers that a birth injury to a newborn child will often have an impact for the child’s lifetime, the need for compensation reflecting the seriousness of the birth injury becomes obvious. Similarly, for mothers who sustain a birth injury, such as an avoidable vaginal tear or anal fissure, the impact can have lasting repercussions on not just the mother but her entire family as well.

The recent case of a 15-year-old boy who was awarded £6.6 million for a birth injury he suffered shows just how catastrophic the effects of medical negligence in Britain’s maternity wards can potentially be.

The boy suffers from cerebral palsy and mental impairment after being starved of oxygen at birth. The court heard that medical staff could have done more to ensure the boy was given the chance at a normal life free of birth injury.

The £6.6 million compensation claim payout is so large because it recognises that the birth injury the boy suffered will last for the duration of his lifetime. He is in a wheelchair and will never be fully independent. While it is unclear whether the boy’s family opted to use the services of a no win, no fee solicitor, it seems that with the dissolution of most legal aid in the UK, a no win, no fee claim represents the best option for British families facing a similar situation.

It can be said that birth traumas suffered by a mother will also last, though in a less literal sense, a lifetime. A traumatic birth can affect the bonding process between mother and child, and it can also lead to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The Birth Trauma Association report that around 10,000 women a year develop PTSD as a result of difficult childbirths, with a further 200,000 developing symptoms associated with PTSD.

Speaking to the Daily Mail [insert italics], one woman who recently gave birth on the NHS tells a frightening tale. She says she was left alone, for a long time, during the birth of her child without a doctor or midwife to hand. Shockingly, it was left to her mother to deliver her baby.

She makes it clear that she fears she, or her child, might have suffered a birth injury had her mother not been there to help, “Without my mother, I dread to think what would have happened.” She goes on to say that she has ‘a happy, healthy little girl, but it could have been so different’.

This article may be published on another website free of charge, on the condition that a link is provided from this article to our website: http://www.youclaim.co.uk/Birth-injury/Birth-injury-fractures.htm

Article Source: http://www.marketingarticlebank.com

Katy Lassetter, YouClaim are the leading online personal injury compensation claim people with an excellent claim success rate. Call 0800 10 757 95 or visit www.youclaim.co.uk/Birth-injury/Birth-injury-fractures.htm for more details.

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated