Infant Brain Injury & Cerebral Palsy

Brain injury in newborns most commonly occurs as a result of oxygen deprivation during labour or delivery. When a baby is deprived of sufficient oxygen — even briefly — brain cells begin to die. The extent of the damage depends on how long the deprivation lasted and how quickly it was identified and addressed.

The medical term for this is hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy, or HIE. In plain terms, it means brain damage caused by a reduction in blood flow and oxygen to the brain. Depending on its severity, HIE can cause a range of outcomes — from relatively mild developmental delays to profound and permanent disability.

Cerebral palsy is one of the most common outcomes of infant brain injury caused during birth. It is a condition that affects movement, posture and coordination, and arises from damage to the developing brain. Cerebral palsy is not a single condition — it presents across a wide spectrum, from mild difficulty with coordination to the need for total, lifelong care.

Not every case of infant brain injury gives rise to a legal claim. Labour is complex and unpredictable, and some outcomes cannot be prevented even with excellent care. But a significant proportion of infant brain injuries are the direct result of failures in medical management — and those failures may entitle your family to substantial compensation.

The central question in any infant brain injury claim is this: was the injury caused — or made worse — by a breach in the standard of care that a competent medical practitioner should have provided?

In the context of birth, the most common failures we see include:

Failure to Recognise and Respond to Foetal Distress

During labour, your baby’s wellbeing is monitored continuously using a cardiotocograph — a CTG trace. This machine records the baby’s heart rate and allows clinicians to identify signs that the baby may be under stress. Abnormal heart rate patterns, meconium-stained fluid, and reduced foetal movement are all warning signs that demand prompt action.

When those signs are present and are not recognised, not taken seriously, or not acted upon in time, the consequences for the baby can be severe and irreversible. The failure to properly interpret a CTG trace is one of the most commonly litigated issues in infant brain injury claims in Australia.

Delayed Emergency Caesarean Section

When foetal distress is identified, the standard response is often an emergency caesarean section. Every minute of delay increases the risk of permanent brain injury. When the decision to perform an emergency caesarean is made too late — or when the procedure itself is delayed once the decision has been made — a preventable injury may become a life-altering one.

In cases involving delayed caesarean section, the question is not simply whether a caesarean was eventually performed. It is whether it was performed quickly enough, and whether earlier action would have prevented or reduced the brain injury your child suffered.

Mismanagement of Labour and Delivery

The misuse of instruments such as forceps or vacuum extractors, the inappropriate use of labour-inducing medications such as Syntocinon, and the failure to escalate care when complications arise are all recognised forms of negligence in birth injury litigation. Each of these failures can contribute to oxygen deprivation, birth trauma, and lasting neurological damage.

Neonatal Intensive Care Negligence

Brain injury does not always occur during labour. In some cases, a newborn who was born in a compromised state could have been stabilised and protected from further harm — if the right interventions had been made quickly enough. Failures in the immediate post-birth period, including delays in resuscitation, failure to perform urgent diagnostic testing, and inadequate monitoring in the neonatal intensive care unit, can all contribute to or worsen infant brain injury.

Cerebral palsy is a group of conditions caused by damage to the developing brain, usually occurring during pregnancy, birth, or shortly after birth. It affects movement, muscle tone, posture, and coordination. In more severe cases, it also affects communication, cognitive development, and the ability to perform basic daily activities without assistance.

Children with cerebral palsy require lifelong support. Many need specialised equipment, regular therapy, assistance with daily living, and in some cases, total personal care. The emotional, practical, and financial demands on families are enormous — and they do not diminish over time. In fact, as a child with cerebral palsy grows into adulthood, those demands often increase.

A successful compensation claim for a child with cerebral palsy can fund the full extent of that future care — providing financial security for your child and your family in a way that nothing else can.

Where a claim succeeds, your child may be entitled to compensation for:

• Pain and suffering — the physical and emotional impact of the injury, throughout your child’s lifetime
• Future medical expenses — the cost of specialist treatment, surgery, rehabilitation, and ongoing clinical care
• Future care needs — the commercial cost of attendant care, personal assistance, and supported living, calculated across your child’s life expectancy
• Loss of earning capacity — if the severity of the injury means your child will never be able to work
• Home and vehicle modifications — the cost of adapting your living environment to meet your child’s needs

These are significant sums. Claims involving children with severe cerebral palsy or profound hypoxic brain injury frequently result in substantial settlements that reflect the full weight of a lifetime of care. The legal process takes time and requires thorough expert evidence — but for families who succeed, the financial security it provides is life-changing.

Claims brought on behalf of injured children operate differently from adult claims in some important respects.

A child cannot bring a legal claim in their own name. A parent or guardian acts as the child’s litigation guardian throughout the process. As a parent, you have the right to pursue this claim on your child’s behalf — and in doing so, you are exercising one of the most powerful forms of advocacy available to you.

Time limits also work differently for injured children. In most Australian jurisdictions, the limitation period for a child’s claim does not begin to run until the child turns 18. This means that even if your child’s birth was several years ago, a claim may still be possible. We encourage you to seek advice as early as practicable, however — evidence is better preserved, and expert opinion is more readily available when investigations begin sooner rather than later.

Claims for severely injured children typically take longer to resolve than other birth injury claims. This is partly because the full extent of a child’s disability is often not apparent until they are older — and courts and practitioners are careful to ensure that any settlement reflects the complete picture of your child’s needs. We will guide you through every stage of that process, at whatever pace is right for your family.

Anthony Porthouse has spent more than 36 years litigating personal injury and medical negligence claims across Australia, with the past 15 years focused exclusively on birth injury. He has litigated infant brain injury and cerebral palsy claims in every Australian jurisdiction, working with the country’s leading medical experts in obstetrics, neonatology, and paediatric neurology.

When you work with Birth Injury Lawyers, your child’s case receives the same level of dedicated, expert attention that Anthony has brought to every birth injury matter he has handled — across hundreds of claims and multiple jurisdictions.

We work on a no win, no fee basis, with clear, fixed costs for each stage of the claim agreed before we begin. No surprises.

You do not need to have all the answers before you contact us. Most families we speak to are still making sense of their child’s diagnosis when they first reach out. Our job at that stage is simply to listen, and to give you an honest and clear view of whether there may be grounds for a claim.

Contact Birth Injury Lawyers today for a confidential, no-obligation consultation.