Birth injuries can cause various types of disabilities differing in severity, which can take years and even decades to get diagnosed. Some of the mild cognitive development disabilities include delayed language development, fine motor skills, delay in learning, reading skills, and basic math. More serious cognitive disabilities that can affect a child include attention deficit hyper disorder (ADHD) or attention deficit disorder (ADD), autism and Asperger’s syndrome. While it is a common belief that these cognitive disabilities are adaptive or natural behaviors, there are some studies that suggest many of these disorders can be attributed to birth injuries. Our Chicago birth injury lawyers explain this in detail.
How are birth injuries and cognitive disabilities related?
Some experts are of the opinion that ADHD and ADD are connected to brain trauma sustained at a young age. Some recent studies have shown connection between ADHD, ADD and long, difficult labor. The connection is clear, our brain is designed to withstand compression to some extent, and a labor that lasts longer than 18 hours puts significant stress on the baby’s brain. Serious cognitive disabilities such as Asperger’s syndrome and autism may indicate oxygen deprivation for a short period, which caused brain trauma from an emergency action.
Types of birth injuries that can cause cognitive developmental disabilities
Birth injuries such as anoxia, hypoxia, birth asphyxia, or perinatal asphyxia for a short duration (less than a minute) can cause mild cognitive disabilities such as problems with fine motor skills and social anxiety. Oxygen loss for more than a minute and forceps or vacuum injury that puts excessive stress on the brain can cause more serious cognitive disabilities such as ADHD and ADD.
Oxygen deprivation, including anoxia, hypoxia, perinatal asphyxia and birth asphyxia can lead to most severe cognitive development disabilities such as Asperger’s syndrome and autism. These development disorders may also result from brain trauma caused in other ways such as cephalohematoma (bleeding of the brain between the brain and the skin), skull fractures due to vacuum extraction or forceps delivery or blunt force trauma to the head. Emergency reaction in the brain can reorder cognitive pathways and lead to cognitive development disabilities.
Cerebral palsy and birth injuries
Cerebral palsy is the most common form of motor disability that affects around 500,000 people. It not only causes muscle and movement limitations, but is also associated with cognitive development disabilities that range from being mild to severe. In many cases, the cause of cerebral palsy is unknown, however, many children with cerebral palsy also experienced birth injuries that led to oxygen deprivation. Some of the common emotional, behavioral, and cognitive disabilities associated with cerebral palsy include:
- Poor decision-making skills
- Learning disabilities
- Impulsiveness
- Speech and communication problems
- Inappropriate emotional outbursts
Getting legal help in birth injury cases
If you think your child’s birth injury is a result of health care provider’s negligence, you should immediately discuss your case with a qualified Chicago birth injury lawyer. Call Willens Law Offices at (312) 957-4166 today to schedule a free consultation.
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