Electronic Fetal Monitoring Strips: Important in a Birth Injury Case?

Hey, Brian, are electronic fetal monitoring strips important in a birth injury case? Electronic fetal monitoring strips are often very important in a birth injury case. The electronic fetal monitoring strip is sort of how the fetus talks to the outside world during the labor and delivery process. So what can happen is various problems may develop during the course of labor and delivery, which may result in changes in the baby's heart rate. And the fetal monitor strips keep track of the baby's heart rate and provide a visual record of what's happening. And so the baby's heart rate may change in response to contractions. The mother might be having either normal or sometimes abnormal contractions. And an experienced interpreter of fetal monitor strips can tell from the strips whether the baby is having a significant problem during labor delivery. For example, if the baby's not getting enough oxygen because the umbilical cord is being compressed or the head is being compressed, or for some other reason, there will be telltale abnormalities in that electronic fetal monitoring strip. And when you have these abnormalities, it becomes incumbent upon the medical team, the doctors and nurses involved, to take some sort of intervention to make sure the baby's OK or to get the baby out of that environment. In other words, to proceed to an expeditious delivery. And when that doesn't happen, when there are abnormalities in the strip and nothing is done to deal with the problem, unfortunately, babies can end up significantly impaired for the rest of their lives. And so when building a birth injury case, it is of paramount importance in most cases to get the fetal monitor strips to review them and to go over them with the right expert to make sure that things were either done by the book or to find out whether they weren't done by the book and whether or not you have a good, solid birth injury case. So that's the importance of electronic fetal monitor strips.