Every year in the United States, there are thousands of infant deaths during birth.
In addition to birth deaths, there are around 2,000 birth injuries every month.
When a parent receives a birth injury diagnosis, not only is it devastating, but it can be hard to know what to do.
Many parents are left wondering what steps to take next. If the injury occurred as a result of malpractice, birth injury attorneys are the ones who can help.
Was your child injured during birth, and you’re unsure of how or why it happened?
In this article, we’ll tell you all about birth injuries, birth injury lawyers, and what they can do for you.
Table of Contents
What Is a Birth Injury?
A birth injury, also referred to as birth trauma, occurs as a result of physical pressure during the process of birth.
Usually, it occurs during a baby’s transit through the birth canal. A lot of newborns have minor injuries during birth. But sometimes, bones are broken, or nerves are damaged, resulting in more severe injuries.
Sometimes birth injuries occur as a result of the natural occurrences of labor and delivery.
In the past, the risks of cesarean deliveries were much higher than they are today. To avoid performing these risky deliveries, doctors would opt for alternative measures like pulling the baby out of the mother using forceps.
But bringing a baby down from high in the birth canal has a high risk of causing a birth injury. Today, for the most part, forceps are only used during the final stages of delivery.
However, they can still cause injury.
What Are the Causes of Birth Injuries?
Some of the reasons why birth injuries occur are:
- Mistakes in testing for injuries
- Failure to properly interpret genetic testing
- Delay or failure to alleviate fetal distress
- Failure to deal with shoulder dystocia
- Surgical negligence
- Inability to manage a premature delivery
- Failure to properly manage gestational diabetes
- Misdiagnoses during pregnancy
- Negligence during either delivery or labor
Even if you are unsure as to whether a birth injury occurred as a result of negligence, it’s still vital that you find a birth injuries lawyer to assess your unfortunate situation.
What Are Common Birth Injuries?
Even though birth injuries are much less common than they used to be, they still happen.
Here are some of the more common birth injuries that happen today:
- Cerebral Palsy
- Facial Paralysis
- Erb’s Palsy
- Perinatal Asphyxia
- Cephalohematoma
- Subconjunctival Hemorrhage
- Spinal cord injuries
- Brachial Palsy
- Bone Fractures
If your son or daughter received any one of these injuries during birth, a professional birth injury attorney could help you get the compensation you deserve.
What Is a Birth Injury Attorney?
A birth injury attorney is a lawyer who specializes in this extremely specific area of personal injury law.
Personal injury law in itself is a pretty broad spectrum. If you’re a parent and your child was born with an injury or illness, it’s both a confusing and painfully difficult time.
Having put your trust in medical professionals to deliver your child safely, only to learn that damage was done along the way, is a devastating truth to learn.
A birth injury attorney specializes in cases just like yours, and they have years of experience doing so. They know what to look for, how to get medical reports, how to determine fault, how to generate your claim, and they’ll lead you every step of the way of your case so you can focus on your baby and your emotional state.
They have the depth of knowledge in healthcare and the law to get you the compensation you deserve. It is also advisable to look for one around the area of the hospital or medical institution where you gave birth. A Baltimore birth injury lawyer will be more knowledgeable on the laws and policies of Maryland.
You shouldn’t have to worry about payment, as most, if not all, birth injury attorneys work on contingency. Their main goal is to get you the compensation your family deserves, and if they can’t do so, they won’t ask for a dime of your money.
How Can a Birth Trauma Lawyer Help?
An excellent birth injury lawyer has an extensive network of experts at their disposal.
They’ll collaborate with medical professionals, investigators, and anyone else necessary to get the information they need to work on your case.
While they can’t reverse the painful damage that’s been done, they can help you get compensation to help with your child’s ailment for the rest of their life.
A professional and experienced birth injury lawyer should be able to get you enough compensation to cover all the expenses associated with raising a birth-injured baby.
Some of the things an attorney might help you get compensation for are as follows:
- Loss of wages (if you or both parents stop working to care for the child)
- Lifelong medical therapies and treatments
- Home modifications
- Vehicle modifications
- Personal care
- Lifestyle support
- Mobility equipment and any other assistive technology
- Anything else the child may need, especially after parents have passed away
When you’re dealing with a birth injury as a parent, all you can think about is the suffering of your baby.
An experienced attorney will look ahead and account for all the things you’ll need to care for your child in the future.
Birth Injury Attorneys Play Important Roles
Nothing is worse than learning your new baby has suffered an injury during birth, especially if it was as a result of malpractice by the medical professionals you listened to and trusted.
Even though technology, accountability, and educated, talented medical professionals have resulted in birth injury rates going down, injuries at birth are still awful truths that continue to happen.
If you learn that your child has incurred a birth injury, birth injury attorneys are who you should call for help.
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