United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Was the BPI injury mentioned in the records of your kids? I requested mine recently and was suprised to find NOTHING not one mention of his arm in them. It did have stuff about how irregular his breathing was at first, but nothing about his arm. Someone mentioned that there are more records but you have to know what to ask for or something. I know I'm neive but I don't understand how these things happen and drs get away with this crap.

Hi, The funny thing is my sons injurys are mentioned only by diagnosis. In the physicians notes it states my son has good movement of billateral upper extremities with equal strength! HA! My son had absolutely no function in his erbs arm. I did request the records on a suprise visit. It was already to late, all of my sons records were doctored,most likely the day of his birth. And it was only 1 week after his birth, I was still in the hospital. Our attorney has proven his records to be false, hence movement of billateral extremities. Even thought there is significant evidence of malpractice and doctoring of legal documents we do not have a case because there is no way to prove my son will have a life long problem. This is discusting but what is even worse is that he cannot even receive propper care because his entire birth record is false. He is now two and we still have Ot once a week and multiple doctor visits. My best advice to you would be to just show up in medical records where your child was born and get a copy of his and your records. Prepair to wait and meet resistance. It is unfortunate but doctors are getting away with this crap because there are too many frivilous law suits in this country and the laws make it harder for people with real need to take it to court. The benefits out way the risk for these doctors to leave things out and make things look better than what they actually were. Try to prove it!! Thanks for letting me vent. My son was recessitated at birth, had a right brachial plexus injury, left fractured humerous, paralised eye and fat necrosis of the back all proven facts and we have no case. Go figure. good lick!

Sorry, I forgot to tell you that when you go to medical records sit down with your chart and your childs chart and make sure they copy each and every page. Also you want them to be certified copies, just in case they will be going to an attorney. They will hate you in medical records but at least you'll have peace of mind. there is already a huge chance that your records have already been prettied up.Again, Good Luck.

i keep every eval, doc, anything that my child has. also i went to the hospital the week we got out of hospital for jaundice. i showed up & waited & waited & waited. but, hopefully it will make a difference. in my records shoulder dis. was mentioned. what i cannot believe was his apgar score it was normal i think, but, he was paralized in arm, purple head, was not crying it was horrible! i thought he was dead! i am wondering how other apgar scores were & what that really means?

I have two totally different sets of medical records. I surprised them and was firm about not leaving without them.....they gave me one set and forgot to stamp that they had given them to me. Then when the attorney requested them hers were different, yes, totally different. BPI was mentioned in the first set but not the second !!!! In the first set, I was the best patient ever, very compliant, in the second set, I was an awful patient who wouldn't comply with anything !!! Gayle

My son's apgar scores were 6 and 8. He wasn't breathing right at first at least not real well-they were massaging him and I could see it and I kept asking what was wrong and if he was ok and they just said "He'll be fine" "everything's ok" but I knew everything wasn't ok. It was the single most horrifying traumatic experience of my life and I'll never forget it. All my friends talked about how amazing childbirth was. I mean not the actual birth but when the baby came out and was placed on their chest and they saw it for the first time. They say how beautiful the experience was. For me it was just the opposite. I was terrified. I wouldn't describe the experience as beautiful. Sometimes I get really upset about his arm- and then I stop and thank God that he's even here at all. I am so thankful that I have him-he's the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me, but his coming into the world was far from what I pictured.

Oh yeah and they are supposed to downgrade the score for a limp arm-one of the categories is limbs and if they are normal. Obviously his was not- so I'd be ticked if his apgar was normal. It makes it look like everything was fine and it wasn't.

I got all of our records pretty quick. I also just popped up and would not leave with out them. They wanted me to come back the next day to get them. I waited for about 4 hours in the office, but they didn't get to "doctor" them.

MArlyn

Apgar scores were designed to quickly asses the physical condition of a newborn to determine if they are in need of immediate medical care not to determine life long health. The scoring is from 0-10. They rate heart rate, breathing (rate and effort), grimace (responsiveness), activity (muscle tone) and appearance (skin coloration). Each catagory is worth up to 2 points. They are scored at 1 minute of life and 5 minutes of life. Some babies, especially traumatic birth babies will have low apgars the first time. On the second scoring they are usually better. In some instances a baby will be scored a third time after 10 minutes in extreeme cases. For example, my son's first score was 2 (his heart was beating. His second score was 7 (2 heart rate, 2 color, 2 respiratory rate, 1 tone, 0 for grimace he was unresponsive)I'm not quite sure if these are "truely" his scores but that's what they told me they were.

Ask for the Progress Notes, doctor's and nurse's. Ask for the codes that they used at discharge. It will have all the diagnosis that the doctor coded for at discharge which should reflect care that was needed. Ask for the Labor Record and Nurse's notes from labor. In each hospital, each paper may be called something else. Sit down with the chart with whoever the hospital says you sit down with and pick which papers you want copies of. Look them over prior to copying them and look them over after copied to make sure they are the same.

Tanya in NY
Amber's Mom, ROBPI, 3 years old