Medical mistakes during a child's birth are far too common and can leave the child with permanent a permanent birth injury, such as cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is a injury that occurs to the baby's brain before, during, or immediately after delivery, and often is caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain.

Cerebral palsy can occur when if the delivery doctor or nurses fail to recognize fetal distress or a lack of oxygen, if the fetal heart rate was not being ministered closely enough, if the decision to perform a C-section was delayed or other mistakes made during the delivery process.

Sometimes children with cerebral palsy and their families are able to bring a medical malpractice claim against negligent health care providers that helps provide the family with the financial means to care for their disabled child and could also compensates them for pain and suffering.

Recently, a federal appellate court in Illinois upheld a $29 million medical malpractice verdict awarded to the family of a boy who was the victim of a birth injury and suffered brain damage as a result. The original verdict was handed down in April 2010 and the federal judge upheld the decision in late August.

The doctors whom the case was brought against were employed by the United States government at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital in 2003 when the boy was delivered.

In the malpractice lawsuit, the attorneys for the boy and his family, the plaintiffs, argued that the doctors failed to take prophylactic measures to prevent infection and missed signs and symptoms of a neonatal infection. This infection left the boy a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, the attorneys said.

After the first trial awarded the boy and his family $29.1 million, attorneys for the doctors appealed, citing that the statue of limitations had run and that the case was not timely filed because it was brought two years after the baby left the hospital following the birth.

The federal judge ultimately agreed with the plaintiffs' attorneys reasoned that the family had no reason to know that the disability was caused by the doctors, which is why their filing was delayed.

Source: Daily Herald, "$29 million verdict upheld for Gurnee boy," Sept. 1, 2011