When a family calls us regarding a birth injury investigation, brain imaging patterns, and a baby’s HIE injury are not questions that families are generally well versed on. This is because an HIE injury is not something that is common at birth thankfully, but when it does occur, it comes with many questions. In this educational article and supporting video, we will discuss the role of brain imaging patterns when looking to find answers as to the cause of a baby’s HIE injury at birth.
Brain Imaging Patterns And A Baby’s HIE Injury.
Our working definition of HIE is a reduction of oxygenated blood which can cause a baby to suffer a traumatic brain injury. As we have said, in the past, there can be many things which can cause a baby to suffer an HIE injury. For example, you could have genetic/developmental issues which can become present and cause a baby to suffer this traumatic brain injury. In addition to genetic and developmental issues, birth trauma can also be the cause of the injury. By birth trauma, I mean negligence on the part of the doctors, nurses, or hospital.
When a baby has suffered a traumatic brain injury, medical professionals can perform certain types of scans and head imaging to get a better understanding as to not only the injury, but the injury severity in some instances. For example, ultrasound, CT, and MRI imaging can be deployed by doctors when a brain injury is suspected.
Brain imaging and scans can reveal certain types of patterns regarding the injury. For a birth, trauma attorney, like me, analyzing the injury patterns can help us during our investigation begin to understand, in some instances the cause of the HIE injury. According to some of the literature, when a hypoxic injury has occurred generally certain areas in the center of the brain will be impacted. For example, the basal ganglia can be involved as well as the brain stem and other areas of the brain when an HIE injury is present.
Understanding the imaging pattern, especially on the MRI, behind the backdrop of the fetal heart readings, can help determine whether birth trauma or genetics/developmental issues were present as the underlying cause of the injury.
One way to look at this is if the MRI pattern reveals injury to the basal ganglia and the thalamus, with non-reassuring readings on the electronic fetal heart monitor and a baby depleted of fetal reserves, a strong argument can be made that birth trauma may have been the cause of the HIE injury. On the other hand, if there is an HIE injury, with no injury to the central areas of the brain, and a reassuring fetal heart strip, then genetics/developmental issues may be the underlying cause of the HIE injury. With all of this said, it is still important to be able to analyze all the relevant factors and records associated with these cases to be able to give families answers as to the cause of the brain injury.
If you have more questions regarding your baby’s HIE injury at birth, and you would like us to do a birth injury investigation for you to find answers as to the underlying cause of the injury, I invite you to get your phone and call me at my contact information below. We speak with families like yours all the time regarding these type of brain injuries for babies, and we would be happy to listen to your baby’s story.
Marcus B. Boston, Esq.
9701 Apollo Dr. Suite 100
Largo, Maryland 20774
1-833-4 BABY HELP
