Broken Bones During Birth: Medical Necessity vs. Negligence

Matt Williams:
Depending upon the circumstances, the fact that a child suffers broken bones can be evidence of negligence, but also could be the result of a maneuver that was absolutely necessary to save the life of the fetus. For example, if you have a shoulder dystocia where the shoulder gets stuck on mom's pubic symphysis and the baby's head is delivered, really the clinician has a limited time period in order to get the baby delivered before suffering permanent brain injury. And under those circumstances, if the normal maneuvers do not relieve the impaction, it may be necessary to break the bone or the clavicle, the shoulder, in order to allow the baby to be delivered. In those circumstances, physicians often say that they're sacrificing the bone for the brain, and that's a circumstance where that is absolutely the right thing to do. However, there are some times when a baby may experience broken bones during delivery. That was absolutely avoidable under those circumstances. Suffering broken bones can be indicative of excessive traction or excessive physician forces that are applied to the baby during a delivery which physicians only under those unique circumstances should absolutely avoid doing in order to protect the health and safety of the baby.

I would say that most likely unacceptable broken bones would be any kind of skull fracture that the baby might have experienced with the exception that if you use forceps or do vacuum deliveries that can happen. But absent the use of forceps or a vacuum any skull fracture really should not occur during the delivery process. If it's caused by a physician or a nurse, that would be the main fracture or dislocation that should always be avoided.