Judge rules doctor, nurse responsible for cerebral palsy

A Canadian judge has ruled that negligence of a hospital's medical staff was to blame for a little girl's cerebral palsy.

The child, Mirella Rochelle Steinebach, suffers from cerebral palsy that was caused by oxygen deprivation stemming from the separation of her placenta from her mother's uterus during birth, according to CTV British Columbia.

British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Ian Pitfield ruled that the attending doctor and nurse were responsible for the girl's cerebral palsy. Mirella was born at 5:37 a.m., and the judge determined that the oxygen deprivation occurred between 5:17 and 5:27.

"It follows that if Mirella had been delivered at any time before 0517 hours, it is more likely than not that she would not have suffered hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation)," Pitfield wrote in his decision.

A number of factors, including the mother's low weight gain during birth and her gestational diabetes, should have warned the doctor about the potential dangers faced during birth, according to the judge.

The March of Dimes estimates that two to three children in every 1,000 suffer from cerebral palsy.