When is a Failure to Detect Umbilical Cord Prolapse Considered Medical Malpractice?
September 10, 2025
A failure to detect an umbilical cord prolapse may be considered medical malpractice when a healthcare provider does not follow the established standard of care, leading to a birth injury. This happens when medical staff miss known risk factors, fail to monitor the fetal heart rate correctly, or delay an emergency C-section once the prolapse is identified.
Proving this failure requires showing a direct link between the provider’s inaction and the harm your child suffered. While the medical details are complex, securing accountability is possible.
If you have a question about what happened during your delivery, call Wapner Newman for a free consultation at (215) 569-0900.
Key Takeaways for Umbilical Cord Prolapse Malpractice Claims
- Malpractice is based on the failure to respond quickly and competently. An umbilical cord prolapse is a natural complication, but a delayed diagnosis or emergency C-section is what leads to a valid legal claim.
- Healthcare providers must follow a strict standard of care, including monitoring fetal heart rates and identifying known risk factors. A failure to notice signs of distress or to perform a necessary physical exam is a breach of this duty.
- Proving your case requires showing a direct link between the medical team’s negligence and your child’s injury. Successful birth injury claims provide compensation for lifelong costs, such as medical care, therapy, and lost future earnings.
What Makes an Umbilical Cord Prolapse a Medical Emergency?
The core problem with an umbilical cord prolapse is a sudden and severe lack of oxygen. This happens when the umbilical cord slips down into the birth canal ahead of the baby during labor. As the baby descends, their body presses against the cord, compressing it and cutting off the vital flow of oxygen-rich blood from the placenta. This event, which occurs in roughly 1 in 300 births, turns a controlled delivery into a time-sensitive crisis.
Why Every Second Counts
When the brain is deprived of oxygen, damage begins within just a few minutes. This is why a delay of even a few minutes rewrites a child’s entire future and could result in:
- Cerebral palsy: A group of disorders affecting movement, muscle tone, and posture.
- Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE): Brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation.
- Developmental delays: Significant lags in physical, cognitive, or social development.
- Stillbirth: In the most tragic cases, the complete loss of oxygen is fatal.
The Difference Between an Unfortunate Event and Negligence
An umbilical cord prolapse is a naturally occurring, albeit rare, complication. The event itself is not automatic grounds for a malpractice claim.
The legal basis for a lawsuit arises from an inadequate response from the medical team. The focus is on whether your healthcare providers acted with the speed and competence required to protect your child from harm once the emergency became apparent.
What Does the ‘Standard of Care’ Require from Your Medical Team?
Your doctors and nurses have a legal duty of care, which is an obligation to provide competent medical treatment. A key part of this duty during labor and delivery is to anticipate potential complications and act decisively when they arise. This includes recognizing the known risk factors for an umbilical cord prolapse and monitoring for any signs of fetal distress.
Some of the most common risk factors include:
- Premature rupture of membranes: When the amniotic sac breaks before labor truly begins.
- Breech presentation: The baby is positioned to be delivered feet- or bottom-first.
- Multiple gestation: Being pregnant with twins, triplets, or more.
- Excessive amniotic fluid: A condition known as polyhydramnios.
What Should a Competent Medical Team Have Done?
Malpractice lawsuits involving failure to detect umbilical cord prolapse typically center on specific failures to meet the required standard of care. These are not just small mistakes; they are significant deviations from established medical protocol that lead to catastrophic injury.
Failure to Monitor
A sudden, sharp drop in the baby’s heart rate, visible on a fetal monitoring strip, is a classic sign of cord compression. A failure to notice this change or to react to it immediately is a clear breach of duty. In fact, diagnosis-related allegations, such as a failure to diagnose or a delay in diagnosis, account for around 34% of all pediatric malpractice claims.
Failure to Perform a Physical Exam
If a patient reports feeling something in the vaginal canal after her water has broken, a physical exam is mandatory to check for a prolapsed cord. Ignoring this report or dismissing it without a proper examination is a serious lapse in judgment and care.
Failure to Prepare for an Emergency C-Section
Once an umbilical cord prolapse is diagnosed, the standard of care demands an immediate emergency C-section, usually within 30 minutes or less. Delays caused by an unprepared operating room, an unavailable surgeon, or poor communication form the basis of a medical malpractice claim. Juries have recognized the gravity of these delays, with recent verdicts awarding millions to families whose children were injured by delayed emergency interventions.
How Do You Prove a Doctor’s Failure Caused Your Child’s Injury?
The central challenge in a birth injury case is proving causation. It is not enough to show that the medical team was careless; you must demonstrate that their medical negligence was the direct cause of your child’s injury. The umbilical cord prolapse itself did not cause the harm—the failure to respond appropriately did.
Our role at Wapner Newman is to work with highly qualified medical reviewers to analyze every detail of your medical records and establish this link. We meticulously examine:
- Fetal monitoring strips: These records provide a second-by-second timeline, allowing us to pinpoint exactly when the baby’s heart rate dropped and how long the medical staff waited before taking action.
- Physician and nursing notes: We look for evidence that risk factors were identified, that your concerns were heard and documented, and how information was communicated among the team.
- Hospital protocols: We compare the actions taken against the hospital’s own written rules for handling obstetric emergencies.
What Does Accountability Look Like?
When negligence is proven, the law provides a way to secure financial stability for your child’s future through damages. This is the legal term for compensation intended to cover the immense, lifelong costs associated with a preventable birth injury. These damages typically fall into two categories:
- Economic damages: This covers all tangible financial costs, including past and future medical bills, ongoing physical and occupational therapy, special education needs, mobility equipment, and your child’s lost future earning capacity.
- Non-economic damages: This provides compensation for the intangible losses, such as physical pain, emotional suffering, and the loss of the ability to enjoy a full life.
Birth injury settlements and verdicts are substantial because they must account for a lifetime of specialized care. Our firm pursues the maximum compensation available under the law to ensure your child has every resource they need.
Frequently Asked Questions About Umbilical Cord Prolapse Lawsuits
Can we still file a lawsuit if the hospital said the injury was unpreventable?
Yes. It is common for hospitals and their insurers to argue that an umbilical cord prolapse was a spontaneous and unavoidable medical event. Our investigation, however, focuses on what happened next. The legal claim is not based on the prolapse itself, but on the failure to respond to it in a timely and competent manner, which is where the negligence occurs.
How much does it cost to hire a lawyer for a birth injury case?
At Wapner Newman, we handle birth injury lawyer cases on a contingency fee basis. This means you pay no upfront fees for our time or resources. We only receive a fee if we successfully recover compensation for you and your family through a settlement or verdict.
Will my lawsuit be reported to a national database?
Yes. If a settlement or verdict is paid on behalf of a medical professional, federal regulations require that payment to be reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank. This is a confidential database used as part of a national system for tracking physician performance and patient safety.
Secure Your Family’s Future with Wapner Newman
You are right to ask hard questions about what happened during the birth of your child. You deserve clear, honest answers and a path toward holding the responsible parties accountable for their actions. At Wapner Newman, we help families in Philadelphia and throughout Pennsylvania manage this difficult process.
Call Wapner Newman today for a free, confidential conversation about your situation at (215) 569-0900.