Birth Injury - Find out why brain injured babies May need brain cooling or hypothermia treatment

You just gave birth to a beautiful baby. And shortly after birth, the doctor comes to you and tells you that they have to transfer the baby immediately to have a procedure known as brain cooling. Would you like to learn what this is about? Come join me as I share with you this terrific information. Hi. I'm Gerry Oginski. I'm a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial attorney practicing law here in the state of New York. There's only one real reason why a baby is going to need something known as a brain cooling procedure, if the baby has suffered some type of brain damage during the course of delivery. There is a procedure in use today that's called brain cooling. And literally what they do is they literally try to decrease the baby's temperature, especially the brain. Because there are studies that have shown by doing that (decreasing the baby's temperature, the baby's core temperature, the baby's brain temperature) by doing that that will minimize the effects of any brain damage that may have occurred during the course of the labor and delivery. Now how does the brain damage occur? Well there are many different ways but the experts tell us that one of the key ways that this can occur is during the course of labor, during the course of delivery, when the baby comes in distress and is not delivered in a timely fashion that is one way that the baby can suffer a type of brain damage. Many times you'll hear the phrase hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. So let me break it down and tell you what those words mean. Hypoxic is a decreased amount of oxygen. When the brain does not have significant oxygen it can suffer significant brain injury that can often be permanent. Ischemia is a decreased blood flow. Encephalopathy means injury to the brain. So what this means is there's a decreased amount of oxygen and a decreased amount of blood causing injury to the brain. And what the doctors are trying to do now with this brain cooling procedure is to reduce the temperature of the brain in an attempt to minimize the effects of this brain damage. So why do I share this with you? I share it with you because I recognize that in all likelihood you've just had a delivery and now you've been told that your baby needs a brain cooling procedure and you probably have more questions. As always, if you do have legal questions, what I encourage you to do is pick up the phone and call me. I can answer your legal questions. This is something that I do every single day and I welcome your call. You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at Gerry@Oginski-law.com. Well that's it for today's quick video. I'm Gerry Oginski, here in New York. Thanks so much for watching.