Birth trauma (BT) refers to damage of the tissues and organs of a newly delivered child, often as a result of physical pressure or trauma during childbirth. The term also encompasses the long term consequences, often of a cognitive nature, of damage to the brain or cranium. Medical study of birth trauma dates to the 16th century, and the morphological consequences of mishandled delivery are described in Renaissance-era medical literature. Birth injury occupies a unique area of concern and study in the medical canon. In ICD-10 "birth trauma" occupied 49 individual codes (P10-Р15).

However, there are often clear distinctions to be made between brain damage caused by birth trauma and that induced by intrauterine asphyxia. It is also crucial to distinguish between "birth trauma" and "birth injury". Birth injuries encompass any systemic damages incurred during delivery (hypoxic, toxic, biochemical, infection factors, etc.), but "birth trauma" focuses largely on mechanical damage. Caput succedaneum, subcutaneous hemorrhages, small subperiostal hemorrhages, hemorrhages along the displacements of cranial bones, intradural bleedings, subcapsular haematomas of liver, are among the more commonly reported birth injuries. Birth trauma, on the other hand, encompasses the enduring side effects of physical birth injuries, including the ensuing compensatory and adaptive mechanisms and the development of pathological processes (pathogenesis) after the damage.

Large for gestational age (LGA) is an indication of high prenatal growth rate.

LGA is often defined as a weight, length, or head circumference that lies above the 90th percentile for that gestational age. However, it has been suggested that the definition be restricted to infants with birth weights greater than the 97th percentile (2 standard deviations above the mean) as this more accurately describes infants who are at greatest risk for perinatal morbidity and mortality.

Macrosomia, which literally means "long body", is sometimes confused with LGA. Some experts consider a baby to be big when it weighs more than at birth, and others say a baby is big if it weighs more than . A baby is also called “large for gestational age” if its weight is greater than the 90th percentile at birth.

While any number of injuries may occur during the birthing process. A number of specific conditions are well described. Brachial plexus palsy occurs in 0.4 to 5.1 infants per 1000 live birth. Head trauma and brain damage during delivery can lead to a number of conditions include: caput succedaneum, cephalohematoma, subgaleal hemorrhage, subdural hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, epidural hemorrhage, and intraventricular hemorrhage.

The most common fracture during delivery is that of the clavicle (0.5%).

LGA and macrosomia cannot be diagnosed until after birth, as it is impossible to accurately estimate the size and weight of a child in the womb. Babies that are large for gestational age throughout the pregnancy may be suspected because of an ultrasound, but fetal weight estimations in pregnancy are quite imprecise. For non-diabetic women, ultrasounds and care providers are equally inaccurate at predicting whether or not a baby will be big. If an ultrasound or a care provider predicts a big baby, they will be wrong half the time.

Although big babies are born to only 1 out of 10 women, the 2013 Listening to Mothers Survey found that 1 out of 3 American women were told that their babies were too big. In the end, the average birth weight of these suspected “big babies” was only . In the end, care provider concerns about a suspected big baby were the fourth-most common reason for an induction (16% of all inductions), and the fifth-most common reason for a C-section (9% of all C-sections). This treatment is not based on current best evidence.

Research has consistently shown that, as far as birth complications are concerned, the care provider’s perception that a baby is big is more harmful than an actual big baby by itself. In a 2008 study, researchers compared what happened to women who were suspected of having a big baby to what happened to women who were not suspected of having a big baby—but who ended up having one. In the end, women who were suspected of having a big baby (and actually had one) had a triple in the induction rate, more than triple the C-section rate, and a quadrupling of the maternal complication rate, compared to women who were not suspected of having a big baby but who had one anyway.

Complications were most often due to C-sections and included bleeding (hemorrhage), wound infection, wound separation, fever, and need for antibiotics. There were no differences in shoulder dystocia between the two groups. In other words, when a care provider “suspected” a big baby (as compared to not knowing the baby was going to be big), this tripled the C-section rates and made mothers more likely to experience complications, without improving the health of babies.

Drug use during pregnancy can have temporary or permanent effects on the fetus. Any drug that acts during embryonic or fetal development to produce a permanent alteration of form or function is known as a teratogen. Drugs may refer to both pharmaceutical drug and recreational drugs.

Confined placental mosaicism (CPM) represents a discrepancy between the chromosomal makeup of the cells in the placenta and the cells in the baby. CPM was first described by Kalousek and Dill in 1983. CPM is diagnosed when some trisomic cells are detected on chorionic villus sampling and only normal cells are found on a subsequent prenatal test, such as amniocentesis or fetal blood sampling. In theory, CPM is when the trisomic cells are found only in the placenta. CPM is detected in approximately 1-2% of ongoing pregnancies that are studied by chorionic villus sampling (CVS) at 10 to 12 weeks of pregnancy. Chorionic villus sampling is a prenatal procedure which involves a placental biopsy. Most commonly when CPM is found it represents a trisomic cell line in the placenta and a normal diploid chromosome complement in the baby. However, the fetus is involved in about 10% of cases.

There are various symptoms of colpocephaly and patients can experience effects ranging from mild to severe. Some patients do not show most of the symptoms related to colpocephaly, such as psychomotor abnormalilities and agenesis of the corpus callosum. In some cases, signs appear later on in life and a significant number of children suffer only from minor disabilities.

The following list includes common symptoms of colpocephaly.

- partial or complete agenesis of the corpus callosum

- intellectual disability

- motor abnormalities

- visual defects such as, crossing of the eyes, missing visual fields, and optic nerve hypoplasia

- spasticity

- seizures

- cerebral palsy

Intracranial abnormalities include:

- Microcephaly

- Agenesis of the corpus callosum

- Meningomyelocele

- Lissencephaly

- Periventricular leukomalacia (PVL)

- Enlargement of the cisterna magna

- Cerebellar hypoplasia

Diffuse axonal injury, or DAI, usually occurs as the result of an acceleration or deceleration motion, not necessarily an impact. Axons are stretched and damaged when parts of the brain of differing density slide over one another. Prognoses vary widely depending on the extent of damage.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an exchangeable word used for the word concussion. This term refers to a mild brain injury. This injury is a result due to a blow to the head that could make the person’s physical, cognitive, and emotional behaviors irregular. Symptoms may include clumsiness, fatigue, confusion, nausea, blurry vision, headaches, and others. Mild concussions are associated with sequelae. Severity is measured using various concussion grading systems.

A slightly greater injury is associated with both anterograde and retrograde amnesia (inability to remember events before or after the injury). The amount of time that the amnesia is present correlates with the severity of the injury. In all cases the patients develop postconcussion syndrome, which includes memory problems, dizziness, tiredness, sickness and depression. Cerebral concussion is the most common head injury seen in children.

After birth, MR imaging can be done to look for cephalic abnormalities. This is the most commonly used method for diagnosing colpocephaly. Physicians look for abnormally large occipital horns of the lateral ventricles and diminished thickness of white matter. Spinal tapping is not a preferred method for diagnosis because newborn babies with colpocephaly or hydrocephaly have open fontanelles which makes it difficult to collect CSF. Also, colpocephaly is not associated with increased pressure.

Prenatal stress (or prenatal maternal stress) is exposure of an expectant mother to stress, which can be caused by stressful life events or by environmental hardships. The resulting changes to the mother's hormonal and immune system may harm the fetus's (and after birth, the infant's) immune function and brain development.

Prenatal stress is shown to have several affects in fetal brain development. In the hippocampus of adult male rats, prenatal stress has shown to decrease the rate of proliferation and cell death in the hypothalamus-pituitary axis. Prenatal stressed animals have prolonged corticosterone response. Removing the adrenal glands of the mother eliminates the effect of the pup's corticosterone response. Supplementing the adrenalectamized mother with corticosterone, rescued the hypothalamic-pituitary-axis response to maternal stress for prenatally stressed offspring. Prenatal stress caused high glucocorticoids, which in turn affects the hypothalamic-pituitary-axis negative feedback.

A study by García-Cáceres et al. showed that prenatal stress decreases cell turnover and proliferation in the hypothalamus of adult rats, which reduces structural plasticity and reduces the response to stress in adulthood. This study also showed that when prenatally stressed rats were stressed in adulthood the females showed an increase in corticotropin-releasing hormone suggesting it to be an up-regulation in the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis. Males showed no elevation of corticosterone levels. Increase in adrenocorticotropic hormone with no effect of adult stress and a decrease in the corticotropin-releasing hormone mRNA in the hypothalamus showed a down-regulation. The author concludes that this makes prenatally stressed females less reactive to later life stressors than males.

Other conditions may commonly co-occur with FAS, stemming from prenatal alcohol exposure. However, these conditions are considered alcohol-related birth defects and not diagnostic criteria for FAS.

- Heart: A heart murmur that frequently disappears by one year of age. Ventricular septal defect most commonly seen, followed by an atrial septal defect.

- Bones: Joint anomalies including abnormal position and function, altered palmar crease patterns, small distal phalanges, and small fifth fingernails.

- Kidneys: Horseshoe, aplastic, dysplastic, or hypoplastic kidneys.

- Eyes: Strabismus, optic nerve hypoplasia (which may cause light sensitivity, decreased visual acuity, or involuntary eye movements).

- Occasional problems: ptosis of the eyelid, microophthalmia, cleft lip with or without a cleft palate, webbed neck, short neck, tetralogy of Fallot, coarctation of the aorta, spina bifida, and hydrocephalus.

When structural impairments are not observable or do not exist, neurological impairments are assessed. In the context of FASD, neurological impairments are caused by prenatal alcohol exposure which causes general neurological damage to the central nervous system (CNS), the peripheral nervous system, or the autonomic nervous system. A determination of a neurological problem must be made by a trained physician, and must not be due to a postnatal insult, such as a high fever, concussion, traumatic brain injury, etc.

All four diagnostic systems show virtual agreement on their criteria for CNS damage at the neurological level, and evidence of a CNS neurological impairment due to prenatal alcohol exposure will result in a diagnosis of FAS or pFAS, and functional impairments are highly likely.

Neurological problems are expressed as either hard signs, or diagnosable disorders, such as epilepsy or other seizure disorders, or soft signs. Soft signs are broader, nonspecific neurological impairments, or symptoms, such as impaired fine motor skills, neurosensory hearing loss, poor gait, clumsiness, poor eye-hand coordination. Many soft signs have norm-referenced criteria, while others are determined through clinical judgment. "Clinical judgment" is only as good as the clinician, and soft signs should be assessed by either a pediatric neurologist, a pediatric neuropsychologist, or both.

Severe head injuries can lead to permanent vegetative states or death, therefore being able to recognize symptoms and get medical attention is very important. Symptoms of a severe closed-head injury include:

- coma

- seizures

- loss of consciousness

If symptoms of a head injury are seen after an accident, medical care is necessary to diagnose and treat the injury. Without medical attention, injuries can progress and cause further brain damage, disability, or death.

Trisomy 16 is a chromosomal abnormality in which there are 3 copies of chromosome 16 rather than two. It is the most common trisomy leading to miscarriage and the second most common chromosomal cause of it, closely following X-chromosome monosomy. About 6% of miscarriages have trisomy 16. Those mostly occur between 8 to 15 weeks after the last menstrual period.

It is not possible for a child to be born alive with an extra copy of this chromosome present in all cells (full trisomy 16). It is possible, however, for a child to be born alive with the mosaic form.

Locations can include:

- subcutaneous tissue/scalp

- pleura (pleural effusion)

- pericardium (pericardial effusion)

- abdomen (ascites)

The edema is usually seen in the fetal subcutaneous tissue, sometimes leading to spontaneous abortion. It is a prenatal form of heart failure, in which the heart is unable to satisfy its demand for a high amount of blood flow.

During prenatal diagnosis the levels of trisomy in fetal-placental tissues can be analyzed. These levels can be predictors of outcomes in mosaic trisomy 16 pregnancies. In a study of prenatal diagnosis cases, there were 66% live births with an average 35.7 weeks gestational age. About 45% of them had malformations. The most common malformations were CSD, ASD, and hypospadias. However, trisomy 16 does not always result in anatomical abnormalities.

Antenatal depression, also known as Prenatal depression, is a form of clinical depression that can affect a woman during pregnancy, and can be a precursor to postpartum depression if not properly treated. It is estimated that 7% to 20% percent of pregnant women are affected by this condition. Any form of prenatal stress felt by the mother can have negative effects on various aspects of fetal development, which can cause harm to the mother and child. Antenatal depression is often caused by the stress and worry that pregnancy can bring, only at a more severe level. Other risk factors include unplanned pregnancy, difficulty becoming pregnant, history of abuse, and economic or family situations.

Commonly, symptoms involve how the patient views herself, how she feels about going through such a life changing event, the restrictions on the mother's lifestyle that motherhood will place, or how the partner or family feel about the baby. Pregnancy places significant strain on a woman's body, so some stress, mood swings, sadness, irritability, pain, and memory changes are to be expected. Antenatal depression can be extremely dangerous for the health of the mother, and the baby, if not properly treated.

Hydrops fetalis is a condition in the fetus characterized by an accumulation of fluid, or edema, in at least two fetal compartments. By comparison, hydrops allantois or hydrops amnion is an accumulation of excessive fluid in the allantoic or amniotic space, respectively.

The apprehension is not necessarily data driven and is a cautionary response to the lack of clinical studies in pregnant women. The indication is a trade-off between the adverse effects of the drug, the risks associated with intercurrent diseases and pregnancy complications, and the efficiency of the drug to prevent or ameliorate such risks. In some cases, the use of drugs in pregnancy carries benefits that outweigh the risks. For example, high fever is harmful for the fetus in the early months, thus the use of paracetamol (acetaminophen) is generally associated with lower risk than the fever itself. Similarly, diabetes mellitus during pregnancy may need intensive therapy with insulin to prevent complications to mother and baby. Pain management for the mother is another important area where an evaluation of the benefits and risks is needed. NSAIDs such as Ibuprofen and Naproxen are probably safe for use for a short period of time, 48–72 hours, once the mother has reached the second trimester. If taking aspirin for pain management the mother should never take a dose higher than 100 mg.

Callosal disorders can be diagnosed through brain imaging studies or during autopsy. They may be diagnosed through an MRI, CT scan, Sonography, prenatal ultrasound, or prenatal MRI.

Symptoms reported by sufferers include: pain and aching to the neck and back, referred pain to the shoulders, sensory disturbance (such as pins and needles) to the arms and legs, and headaches. Symptoms can appear directly after the injury, but often are not felt until days afterwards. Whiplash is usually confined to the spine. The most common areas of the spine affected by whiplash are the neck and middle of the spine. "Neck" pain is very common between the shoulder and the neck. The "missing link" of whiplash may be towards or inside the shoulder and this would explain why neck therapy alone frequently does not give lasting relief.

Cognitive symptoms following whiplash trauma, such as being easily distracted or irritated, seems to be common and possibly linked to a poorer prognosis.

Spinal cord injuries at the cervical (neck) level result in full or partial tetraplegia (also called quadriplegia). Depending on the specific location and severity of trauma, limited function may be retained.

Additional signs and symptoms of cervical injuries include low heart rate, low blood pressure, problems regulating body temperature, and breathing dysfunction. If the injury is high enough in the neck to impair the muscles involved in breathing, the person may not be able to breathe without the help of an endotracheal tube and mechanical ventilator.

In addition to the problems found in lower-level injuries, thoracic (chest height) spinal lesions can affect the muscles in the trunk. Injuries at the level of T1 to T8 result in inability to control the abdominal muscles. Trunk stability may be affected; even more so in higher level injuries. The lower the level of injury, the less extensive its effects. Injuries from T9 to T12 result in partial loss of trunk and abdominal muscle control. Thoracic spinal injuries result in paraplegia, but function of the hands, arms, and neck are not affected.

One condition that occurs typically in lesions above the T6 level is autonomic dysreflexia (AD), in which the blood pressure increases to dangerous levels, high enough to cause potentially deadly stroke. It results from an overreaction of the system to a stimulus such as pain below the level of injury, because inhibitory signals from the brain cannot pass the lesion to dampen the excitatory sympathetic nervous system response. Signs and symptoms of AD include anxiety, headache, nausea, ringing in the ears, blurred vision, flushed skin, and nasal congestion. It can occur shortly after the injury or not until years later.

Other autonomic functions may also be disrupted. For example, problems with body temperature regulation mostly occur in injuries at T8 and above.

Another serious complication that can result from lesions above T6 is neurogenic shock, which results from an interruption in output from the sympathetic nervous system responsible for maintaining muscle tone in the blood vessels. Without the sympathetic input, the vessels relax and dilate. Neurogenic shock presents with dangerously low blood pressure, low heart rate, and blood pooling in the limbs—which results in insufficient blood flow to the spinal cord and potentially further damage to it.