Was the harm to your baby during birth something that could have been prevented?
This article will help you understand what the clinical team was required to do, where those requirements are most commonly not met, and what the signs are that your situation may be worth examining.
What the clinical team was required to do
During labour and delivery, midwives and obstetricians are required to monitor the baby’s condition continuously, respond to signs of distress without delay, and escalate to senior clinicians or surgical intervention when the situation demands it. That standard does not change because the ward is busy or the shift is short-staffed.
A CTG trace showed decelerations in the baby’s heart rate over a two-hour period. The midwife documented the pattern but did not escalate to the obstetrician. The obstetrician was not called until the mother began pushing. By then, the baby had sustained a hypoxic brain injury. The trace — still in the records — showed the deterioration clearly, well before the point of no return.
Where it goes wrong
Failure to act on a deteriorating CTG trace
A cardiotocograph — the machine that monitors the baby’s heart rate during labour — produces a continuous paper record. Clinicians are trained to recognise patterns that indicate the baby is not tolerating labour. When those patterns appear, the standard requires escalation: a senior review, a decision about intervention, and documentation of that decision.
What happens instead: the midwife notes the pattern, continues monitoring, and does not call the obstetrician. The obstetrician, when eventually called, does not review the earlier trace. The decision to perform a caesarean section or assisted delivery comes too late. The baby is born with brain damage that a timely delivery would have prevented.
Delayed decision to perform a caesarean section
When a baby shows signs of acute distress — a prolonged deceleration, a cord prolapse, a placental abruption — the clinical standard requires a decision about emergency delivery within minutes. The threshold is not ambiguous. Obstetric guidelines set it clearly.
The delay happens when the obstetrician is not in the hospital, when the theatre team is not assembled promptly, or when the decision-maker underestimates the urgency. Each minute of delay in an acute hypoxic event increases the risk of permanent brain injury. The records will show the time the decision was made, the time the baby was delivered, and the gap between them.
Failure to recognise and manage shoulder dystocia
Shoulder dystocia — where the baby’s shoulder becomes stuck after the head is delivered — is a recognised obstetric emergency. Clinicians are trained in specific manoeuvres to resolve it. Applying traction to the baby’s head to force delivery is not one of them. That force causes brachial plexus injuries: damage to the nerve network that controls the arm and hand.
When a clinician pulls rather than manoeuvres, and the baby is left with a paralysed or weakened arm, the question is whether the correct technique was applied. The records, and the clinician’s own notes, will often answer that.
- Your baby’s heart rate trace showed abnormalities for an extended period before delivery, and no one escalated or explained why not.
- You were told an emergency caesarean was needed, but there was a significant delay before it actually happened.
- Your baby was born with a brain injury, cerebral palsy, or hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy, and the cause was described to you as “one of those things.”
- Your baby sustained a brachial plexus injury — weakness or paralysis in the arm — and you were told it was caused by the size of the baby or the difficulty of the delivery.
- You raised concerns during labour — about pain, about the baby’s movement, about something feeling wrong — and those concerns were not acted on promptly.
- You have requested the medical records and found gaps, late entries, or documentation that does not match what you were told at the time.
The records — not anyone’s recollection — will answer whether the clinical team had the information they needed and acted on it in time. Many parents wait years before looking into this, often because they were focused entirely on their child. The time limit for bringing a claim varies by state and territory in Australia, and in some cases it runs from the child’s eighteenth birthday — but not always. The timing matters, and it is worth understanding sooner rather than later.
What happens next
A legal examination of a birth injury case starts with the records: the CTG trace, the midwifery notes, the obstetric entries, the theatre log, and the neonatal records. Those documents tell a factual story about what the clinical team knew, when they knew it, and what they did. An expert obstetrician then reviews that story against the standard of care that applied at the time.
The goal is an honest answer. Sometimes the records show that the clinical team did everything correctly and the outcome was genuinely unavoidable. That answer matters too — because it lets you stop wondering. When the records show something different, you will know what you are dealing with.
Not sure whether what happened to your baby was avoidable?
Dr Rosemary Listing reviews the records and gives you a straight answer. No obligation, no pressure — just clarity.
For more on how medical negligence claims work in Australia, see Reframe Legal — Medical Negligence.
Dr Rosemary Listing is a lawyer specialising in medical negligence claims, with a PhD in medical negligence. She practises through Peter Evans & Associates, servicing clients across Australia.
Her clinical and legal background allows her to read medical records the way a clinician would — and then apply the law to what she finds. In birth injury cases, that dual perspective matters enormously: the failures that cause harm are often recorded in real time on the CTG trace and in the midwifery notes, but they require someone who understands both what the trace means and what the law requires of the people reading it.
Dr Listing’s work is focused on giving people an honest answer about whether what happened to them was avoidable. Many parents wait a long time before looking into it — sometimes years, sometimes until their child is old enough to ask questions themselves. She understands why — and she does not judge the waiting.
- The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), Intrapartum Fetal Surveillance Clinical Guideline, 4th ed (2019).
- RANZCOG, Shoulder Dystocia (College Statement C-Obs 28, 2016).
- Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards, 2nd ed (2017), Standard 8 (Recognising and Responding to Acute Deterioration).
- Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW); Civil Liability Act 2003 (Qld); Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic); Civil Liability Act 1936 (SA); Civil Liability Act 2002 (WA); Civil Liability Act 2002 (Tas).
- Limitation Act 1969 (NSW) s 50C (special provisions for persons under legal incapacity); Limitation of Actions Act 1958 (Vic) s 27I; Limitation of Actions Act 2005 (WA) s 16 — note that limitation periods for minors vary by jurisdiction and legal advice should be obtained.
- Rogers v Whitaker (1992) 175 CLR 479 (High Court of Australia) — the standard of care owed by medical practitioners.
- Tabet v Gett (2010) 240 CLR 537 (High Court of Australia) — causation in medical negligence claims.
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia’s Mothers and Babies 2021 (AIHW, 2023) — data on perinatal outcomes and intervention rates.
- Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) clinical documentation standards — relevant to hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) diagnosis and cooling protocol records.
This article contains general legal information only. It does not constitute legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer–client relationship. The law applicable to medical negligence claims varies by state and territory in Australia. Each person’s circumstances differ. Time limits apply to legal claims in Australia and vary by jurisdiction. Seek independent legal advice about your specific situation.