For a parent, awaiting the birth of a child is one of the most joyous moments of a lifetime. In a perfect world, things go as planned, and you and your baby go home to nothing more distressing than a few months of sleepless nights. But for some parents, things don’t go as planned, and they’re faced with serious complications. Some of the most heartbreaking of these are birth injuries. If your baby has suffered an injury before, during, or after the birth process, and you suspect your healthcare provider may have been the cause, it’s critical to get skilled legal advice. Our Newtown Square birth injury lawyers at Silver & Silver are here to help you make sense of this emotional time.
The Avoidable Birth Injuries Caused by Medical Negligence
Even with our advanced medical system, childbirth isn’t without its risks, and significant birth injuries still occur at the rate of 6-8 incidents per 1,000 live births. While some birth injuries are unavoidable, others can be caused by the mistakes and negligence of the very team you’ve entrusted with your safe delivery.
Medical professionals and delivery teams have a legal duty to minimize the risks of injury before, during, and after delivery with appropriate medical care and emergency interventions when necessary. If you believe your medical team may have caused your child’s injury, it’s critical to get the guidance of a birth injury attorney. You may be entitled to compensation for these injuries from the negligent party.
Common Birth Injuries Resulting from Negligence
Common birth injuries that can result from a medical team’s negligence can include:
- HIE, or Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy – The most common birth injury is HIE, which is caused by a lack of blood or oxygen to the brain.
- Cerebral palsy – Cerebral palsy is a neurological condition caused by damage to the brain’s movement control center.
- Erb’s palsy – Erb’s palsy is a paralysis or weakness of the arm or shoulder that can result from an injury sustained at birth.
Birth injuries resulting from medical mistakes and negligence can also include skull and collarbone fractures, intracranial hemorrhaging (bleeding in the brain), or other injuries resulting from fetal distress or the lack of appropriate care before, during, or after delivery.
While some birth injuries are minor and can be resolved with prompt medical intervention, others can be more serious and have a long-term impact on your child. These injuries can be financially overwhelming for you and your family when you are trying to seek the best care for your child. If negligence was involved, you have the right to expect that your medical provider be held accountable through a birth injury claim.
How Do You Prove Negligence in a Birth Injury Claim?
Proving negligence is one of the core concepts in a personal injury claim, including birth injury claims and medical malpractice. And there are four specific “elements” that must be proven to establish a case of negligence:
- Your medical provider owed a duty of care – In the case of a birth injury claim, medical providers owe patients a high standard of care based on their education, knowledge, and training.
- Your medical provider breached that duty of care. In other words, they didn’t do what they were trained to do or what was expected of them, given their education, knowledge, and training.
- Causation – Because of that breach, your baby sustained injuries that were a foreseeable result of improper or inadequate care.
- Damages – These injuries resulted in monetary and non-monetary costs to you and your child.
Because your child can’t bring a birth injury claim on their own as a minor, your birth injury attorney will assist you in bringing one on behalf of your child.
How is the Value of a Birth Injury Claim Determined?
The value of a birth injury claim will depend on various factors, including the economic and non-economic damages you’ve suffered as a result of the injury.
- A birth injury claim will seek compensation for your family’s current and anticipated expenses for your child’s intensive care treatment, surgeries, hospitalization, doctor visits, and physical, occupational, or mental health therapies that may be necessary throughout your child’s life.
- Depending on the permanence and severity of your child’s impairments or disabilities, you can also seek compensation for the costs of necessary in-home care, special educational needs, assistive devices, and necessary home modifications in your birth injury claim.
- You may need to take time off or quit working to care for your child’s needs. Your lost wages and loss of future earning capacity can be recovered as part of a birth injury claim.
- Medical interventions may be limited in what they can do for your child, and your child may suffer physically and emotionally because of it. You may be entitled to seek compensation for your child’s pain and suffering, and emotional distress in your birth injury claim.
Proving negligence can be complicated. A skilled birth injury attorney will build your case by using all available evidence to show how your child and family have been harmed. Your lawyer will submit a detailed accounting of all your current and potential future costs and calculations for less quantifiable non-economic damages such as physical and emotional suffering.
Even if you suspect your healthcare provider’s negligence caused your child’s birth injury, you may still be reluctant to pursue a birth injury claim. You’ve already been through enough and want to focus on your child. But it’s important to consider the financial implications of caring for a child with long-term needs. Furthermore, most birth injury claims are resolved through negotiated insurance settlements without ever going to court. Before deciding, get skilled legal advice to understand your rights and options.
At Silver & Silver, our experienced Newtown Square birth injury lawyers are dedicated to getting the compensation you and your family need and deserve after a heartbreaking birth injury. Call us to schedule a free consultation at (610) 638-7255 or reach out through our website contact form. You pay nothing until we recover compensation on your behalf.
Disclosure:
This website is designed to provide only general information. The information presented on this website is not formal legal advice. You should not rely on any general information from any source for making legal decisions. Each legal matter is unique and requires specific attention from a qualified and experienced attorney. Unless a representation agreement has been signed with the Law Office of Silver and Silver, we are not your legal representatives.
