Birth Defect vs. Birth Injury

A birth defect is a health problem that inflicts your baby from the outset based on your child’s DNA. Examples of birth defects are Down Syndrome, a cleft palate, a heart murmur, or other health problems stemming from the structure of the child’s DNA.

In some instances, however, birth defects are a direct cause of outside factors, such as pregnant women taking medication that’s been shown to cause birth defects, such as certain anti-depressant drugs and even certain birth control medications. In these cases, the birth defects could have been prevented had the physician not prescribed these types of medications during pregnancy.

A birth injury is a health problem that an infant is born with that is, in most cases, completely preventable. The most common types of preventable birth injuries are caused by:

• Pulling and/or twisting the infant improperly during the delivery period
• Improper handling and use of birth-assisting tools, such as forceps or a vacuum extraction tool
• Administering the wrong amount or the wrong type of medication to the mother during pregnancy and during labor
• Failure to monitor the infant properly for distress, including failure to regularly monitor fetal heartbeat
• Failure to schedule and perform an emergency cesarean surgery (C-section).

Medical staff can make mistakes that harm your child (sometimes for a lifetime) for a variety of reasons, including inattentiveness, exhaustion, or inexperience. Sometimes, an experienced physician who is better equipped to handle high-risk pregnancies is not available when the baby is being delivered.

None of these reasons are excusable, but unfortunately, these are sometimes the sources for the aforementioned problems. While these are all things that medical staff members should know how to avoid, these accidents are still likely to happen, especially if during a stressful, difficult delivery.