A New Jersey jury awarded a disabled boy $19 million on March 17^{th. The money will pay for the life-long medical care needed due to the boy’s injuries.}

The jury found that the obstetrician misdiagnosed the boy’s mother. At 30 weeks in her pregnancy, she called the doctor and complained of abdominal pain. The doctor did not determine that she was hemorrhaging, did not give the woman the proper tests, did not recognize that the baby was in distress or heed the warnings of his nursing staff who identified the woman’s problem.

The boy was born during a c-section. He had to be resuscitated and then spent the first four months of his life in intensive care. He is now permanently disabled. He is legally blind, suffers from severe brain damage and he has cerebral palsy.

With pre-judgment interest, the jury’s award is expected to exceed $23 million.

Birth trauma attorneys are currently working on similar cases to help those devastated by birth injuries.

A new cooling therapy to help newborns with brain damage is being used at Children’s Hospital in New England. The hospital began using the treatment in July 2007 and has used it on seven newborns so far.

The therapy involves using an inexpensive hypothermia treatment. Doctors claim that the cooling treatment may help to minimize or completely prevent brain damage in newborns that were deprived of oxygen due to birth trauma.

The cooling treatment involves wrapping the infants in a cooling blanket within six hours of their injury. This drops their temperature to 92.3 degrees Fahrenheit. They are kept at the cooler temperature for 72 hours.

The medical director of the Children’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Dr. Anne Hansen, claims that the treatment has been very successful. The doctor explains that the treatment works by cooling the newborn’s brain, which slows down the metabolic needs and protects the infant’s brain from damage.

Hansen explains that brain exams are conducted on the infants before, during and after the treatments to monitor their progress. The neurology clinic at Children’s Hospital will follow the babies as they mature to determine the long-term effects of the treatment.

Birth trauma attorneys are currently working on cases that involve the serious and long-term injuries that result from medical negligence during a child’s birth.