Birth trauma or birth injury refers to harm that occurs to your baby during childbirth. Some birth injuries may be minor and last only a few days while others may be permanent causing symptoms for the duration of your child’s life.

There are a number of known causes of birth trauma:

Some signs of birth trauma or injury will be apparent upon delivery and others may only become apparent when your child is diagnosed with developmental delays or missed milestones.

It can be difficult to determine the cause of the birth injury without significant investigations into your medical history and the establishing everything that occurred during your pregnancy, labour and delivery. If you think that something might have gone wrong during your pregnancy labour or delivery you should contact a lawyer to discuss.

A traumatic birth occurs when the mother experiences physical, emotional, psychological and distress as a result of a traumatic labour and delivery experience. Many who suffer from a traumatic birth go on to suffer from PTSD, postpartum depression and anxiety.

A traumatic birth is highly subjective and can be caused by a number of different factors. Typically a birth becomes traumatic when a woman feels:

Often times a mother experiences a traumatic birth due to the violation of her rights and/or obstetric violence. If either of those things has occurred it there is likely an actionable wrong done to you which can be addressed by way of complaints, rights proceedings or lawsuits.

​Whether you have experienced birth trauma or a traumatic birth please feel free to contact me to discuss your available next steps. As always, I provide a free initial consultation.