Has Your Newborn Received Therapeutic Hypothermia due to medical malpractice?
Call Cullan and Cullan Birth injury Lawyers at (402) 882-7080.
Childbirth complications can occur. When they do the nurses and doctors involved in your labor and delivery must use their education and training to prevent severe or even lifelong injury. Failing to properly manage your labor and delivery to prevent injury to your baby is medical malpractice. If your child required cooling therapy after birth to treat a brain injury, it is likely that such medical negligence was involved.
There is no question that legal action cannot make up for the harm done to your child, but a lawsuit can provide you with the opportunity to hold the negligent health care providers accountable for their actions. This can help you obtain the financial support you need to take care of your baby and it can help prevent it from happening to another family.
If your child suffered a birth injury that required cooling therapy, our doctor-lawyers at Cullan & Cullan want to help you find justice. We are recognized in Nebraska and nationally as award winning birth injury attorneys who have recovered multi-million-dollar judgments and settlements in favor of our clients. This money is necessary to cover the cost of medical treatment and equipment, long-term care, and more. Our firm will investigate the case for free and there are no fees if we do not win.
To schedule your free consultation, call our Omaha trial lawyers at (402) 882-7080 today.
What Is Cooling Therapy?
Cooling therapy, neonatal cooling, hypothermia therapy, and therapeutic hypothermia are all different names for the same treatment administered to protect a newborn’s brain from further damage after injury. Essentially, it works by using cold temperatures to bring the newborn’s body temperature below homeostasis, decreasing blood flow to the injury site.
Depending on the equipment and protocols of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the injured newborn will be administered cooling therapy via one of the following methods:
- Whole-body cooling in which their entire body is cooled; or
- Selective brain cooling in which only part of their head is cooled with a cooling cap.
For whole-body cooling, the newborn’s body temperature is brought down to between 33.5 and 34 degrees Celsius (92.3 and 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit), while for selective brain cooling they are only brought down to between 34.5 and 35 degrees Celsius (94.1 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit). After 72 hours of treatment, the newborn’s body temperature is safely brought back up to normal (37 degrees Celsius or 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Both whole-body and selective brain cooling must be administered no later than 6 hours after the injury was sustained; it will not be effective if administered too late.
Cooling Therapy and Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy
Many times, cooling therapy is administered to treat hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), a birth-related brain injury that can lead to cerebral palsy (CP), seizures, cognitive impairments, and learning and developmental disabilities. While these injuries and conditions are sometimes no one’s fault, other times they arise from medical negligence.
It can be difficult to determine whether medical malpractice played a role in your child’s injury. Your doctors and nurses and their insurance companies are of course not going to admit fault. That being said, you may have witnessed negligence on the part of a health care provider who was attending to you, such as if they failed to listen to your self-reported symptoms, failed to properly monitor your labor, failed to properly administer medications, failed to communicate issues to your doctor and failed to perform a c-section if it was necessary to prevent devastating injury to your baby.
If you know or have reason to believe that negligence injured your child, our attorneys at Cullan & Cullan will conduct an in-depth investigation of your case to get to the bottom of the matter. Don’t wait to reach out, as there are legal deadlines that must be met. The sooner you get started, the more time we can dedicate to investigating your case.
Doctor-Lawyers Committed to Fighting for You
Our Omaha lawyers at Cullan & Cullan are deeply passionate about fighting for the rights of injured children and their families. Nurses and doctors have teams of defense lawyers standing by to work for them. Put the award-winning legal team you deserve in your corner; we will work tirelessly to win you and your family justice and closure.
Contact Cullan & Cullan online today to learn more about your legal options in a free, confidential consultation with an Omaha attorney.