Birth Asphyxia Can Be Prevented By C-Section


Birth asphyxia, or HIE (hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy), is caused by a baby not getting enough oxygen during the birth process. A hospital should be prepared to perform an emergency C-section within five minutes to prevent birth asphyxia. Sometimes a nurse or doctor doesn’t pick up on fetal monitor indications that a baby is not getting enough oxygen, so a C-section is not performed in time and brain damage results.


You can avoid birth asphyxia, or HIE, by performing a very fast C-section or an emergency C-section. Eight percent of birth asphyxia, or HIE, or more occurs in the birthing process. Babies are not able to tolerate the
processes of labor, which is very traumatic for babies, and they don’t get enough oxygen to their brain, and they suffer birth asphyxia, or HIE.

Hospitals need to be able to perform C-sections at least within 30 minutes, but many times much faster than that. If you’ve heard of the term ‘crash C-section’, that’s a situation where most hospitals delivering babies can
perform a C-section within about five minutes. The baby needs to get out of a hostile environment where it’s not getting enough oxygen. If the baby’s delivered by C-section before HIE, or birth asphyxia, the baby’s going to be fine.

Many times we have situations where the babies do not get adequate oxygen because someone did not pick up on the fetal monitor that the baby wasn’t being adequately oxygenated, was not getting enough oxygen. Did not report that to the physician, the nurse might not report it. The nurse might not be able to read the fetal onitor. The young doctor who’s a resident might not be able to read the fetal monitor, and therefore the baby goes without oxygen for a long period of time, suffers brain damage. That’s how we have cases of birth asphyxia and HIE.

The bottom line is there needs to be excellent communication within the hospital, safety steps need to be taken to be able to pick up birth asphyxia, to be able to pick up the fact that the baby’s not getting enough oxygen, and the hospital needs to be able to perform an emergency crash C-section within minutes.

So if your baby suffered HIE or birth asphyxia, or had some problem in the birthing process, you can call us or go to our website at and look over our website. We have hundreds of articles about these types of things, and we’re happy to talk to you any time.