Law Firm Pledges Support for Birth Trauma Awareness Day

27 Aug 2010

Medical law specialists from the North East office of national law firm Irwin Mitchell are backing the Birth Trauma Association’s Birth Trauma Awareness Day (BTA Day), which takes place this year on August 21st, for the fourth year running.

Ahead of this year’s BTA Day, Angela Kirtley, medical law and patient’s rights specialist at Irwin Mitchell, said: “The Birth Trauma Association is a great source of comfort for those families whose lives have been affected in this way, and Birth Trauma Awareness Day is one of the many ways they draw attention to the devastating impact it can have.

“Traumatic births are far more common than people realise and although the outcomes are varied, they are all deeply distressing for the families involved.

“Our Clinical Negligence Team handles a number of cases involving traumatic births, often where babies have been left stillborn or severely disabled at birth.  In both cases, huge levels of support are required to help people through, not only in dealing with the demands of a disabled child but also negotiating their way through the various organisations who obviously try to provide help but are limited in what they can do by restricted resources.”

Birth Trauma Awareness Day is also being backed by Katherine Scroggins, an Irwin Mitchell client whose two-year-old daughter Gracey was diagnosed with Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy after mistakes were made during her birth.

Gracey Marie Newman, who was born on 05 July 2008 at South Tyneside District Hospital, is now fully dependent on 24-hour care. 

Despite being observed by CTG Monitoring throughout the birth, medical staff failed to pick up problems with Gracey’s heart rate and did not call a doctor. When Gracey was born she had to be resuscitated. A Paediatrician was called to assist but did not arrive until Gracey was eight-minutes-old. By this stage her condition had improved slightly.

However, she continued to have difficulty breathing and started to experience seizures. Gracey was transferred to the Special Care Baby Unit at Sunderland Royal Hospital and was discharged on 11 July 2008.

Katherine, of South Shields, has now instructed medical law specialists at Irwin Mitchell to investigate a possible legal claim against the South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust but hopes BTA Day will help prevent other families having to face the same difficulties which her family is now having to deal with.

She said: “Raising Gracey has been a huge struggle from the very beginning and people really have no idea what you go through as a parent of a disabled child. I hope Birth Trauma Awareness Day can help more people understand what our family, and others like ours, go through everyday.

“It’s hard to make life as normal as possible for Gracey, she has to attend numerous hospital appointments and has continued to experience dramatic seizures that cause her to be severely ill.

“Now Gracey is two it is becoming more apparent that she isn’t like other two-year-olds – she cannot walk and will have communication problems. I hope that through our fight for justice and by helping to support Birth Trauma Awareness Day I can raise awareness of the devastating impact that birth trauma can have on families.”

Birth Trauma Awareness Day is run by the Birth Trauma Association, which supports all women who have had a traumatic birth experience – from more information visit http://www.birthtraumaassociation.org.uk/

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