With the advancement in modern medicine comes reductions in complications to procedures such as labor and delivery. However, despite the fact that the number of birth trauma injuries is lower contemporarily than ever before historically, there are still injuries that occur during birthing process that can range anywhere from minor to serious. These injuries can affect both mother and infant. Rough estimates on the prevalence of birth injuries conservatively place the number of live births involving some degree of birth trauma at less than three percent of childbirths.
What Is a Birth Trauma?
A birth trauma is generally considered a generic term for an injury that might arise during labor. Birth trauma is an all-encompassing term that could entail a small laceration that appears on the infant during delivery, bone fractures in the birthing process, or potentially life-threatening complications involving anoxia and hypoxia. Ultimately, with birth injury as a broad term could range from something very minor that requires no treatment such as a caput succedaneum or be serious enough to cause permanent mental and physical deformities, including even death.Common Birth Traumas include:
- Caput succedaneum is a common form of birth trauma that results when trauma to the skull causes swelling. This condition can lead to the more serious side effect of jaundice in rare situations, therefore it is essential that medical practitioners monitor the progress of the swelling
- Subconjunctival hemorrhages, which occur when a blood vessel in the infant’s eye break. It causes bleeding and is observable as redness in the infant’s eye
- Fractures, especially those involving the clavicle of infant. In some cases, nothing has to be done to treat these fractures. However, in cases where pain is present, a sling may be necessary.