The birth of a baby should be a joyous occasion. But sometimes, things can go wrong. Birth trauma can be a huge problem for mothers facing a difficult delivery or if there is negligence on the part of a doctor.

Birth trauma happen when injuries are sustained during birth to a child. Less often, the term can also refer to injuries sustained by the mother. Birth is a challenging and risky process, and before the development of modern medicine, it was one of the more dangerous life events humans faced.

In addition to birth being physically challenging for mother and child, babies have many physical weaknesses and even at birth are not completely developed, leaving them even more vulnerable to birth trauma. One type of birth trauma is cranial nerve trauma.

In cranial nerve trauma, birth trauma damages nerves in the head and neck. Depending on the exact nerve injured in this type of birth trauma, different symptoms and outcomes may transpire. Two more common forms of birth trauma involving the cranial nerves includes in cranial nerve trauma to the facial nerve and birth injuries to the vagus nerve.

Birth trauma to the facial nerves may not be readily apparent. A baby cannot report numbness or paralysis in his or her face. At the same time, babies are still figuring out how to work their face muscles, so a lopsided expression may not be obvious.

One of the tell-tail signs of this type of birth trauma, however, can be noticed when a baby’s expression is not symmetrical when crying. The scrunched up face of a crying infant is very involuntary, and in most healthy infants, both sides of a baby’s face will move in the exact same way when crying. If part of the face isn’t mirrored, there may be damage to the facial nerve trauma.

In many cases, this type of cranial nerve trauma can clear up on its own, but it should be brought to a physician’s attention. Birth trauma to the facial nerve may be a sign of more widespread birth trauma. In fact, the facial nerve is mere millimeters from nerves that control the heart and other vital organs. Additionally, the more serious cases may not heal on their own and even require surgical intervention.

Birth trauma to the vagus nerve is much more serious than cranial nerve trauma afflicting the facial nerves. The vagus nerve controls muscles in the chest, so damage to this nerve can have life-threatening consequences.

The vagus nerve is paired, so two of them run down the side of the neck. Birth trauma to a single vagus nerve carries a mortality rate of 10 percent to 15 percent. When both vagus nerves are damaged by birth trauma, the outcome is even more grim.

One-out-of-two infants with damage to both vagus nerves will die from this type of birth injury. Again, the vagus nerve is very close to the facial nerve in an infant, and birth trauma to one may mean birth trauma to the other.