Cerebral palsy is an injury that is often caused at birth. It happens, in many cases, because there’s a lack of oxygen to the child’s brain. This is one of the reasons prolonged labor can be dangerous, for example.
However, the average age at which cerebral palsy is diagnosed is three years old. At the time of birth, the parents may not even realize that anything went wrong. Why does it take so long to recognize the symptoms of cerebral palsy?
The child needs to reach (and miss) certain milestones
In many cases, the issue is that the symptoms of cerebral palsy include missing certain developmental milestones. For instance, a child may not be able to walk at the time that the parents expect. When they do walk, they may have stiff or difficult movements, especially on one side of the body.
However, when the child is only a few months old, they simply haven’t progressed to the point where the parents would expect them to be able to walk anyway. So there can be a delay in diagnosis because the child simply has to grow old enough to reach these expected milestones, and then the fact that they don’t hit them at the anticipated times is a signal to the pediatrician that cerebral palsy may be an issue.
It’s not just walking. Children can also face developmental delays when it comes to crawling, rolling over, sitting up, properly picking items up with their hands and much more.
Was it medical malpractice?
If your child has cerebral palsy, you may believe that mistakes made by the medical staff during the birth are what caused the issue. It’s important to know what legal steps you can take at this time.
