The medical malpractice law firm of Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers has handled numerous birth injury claims caused by negligence in the delivery process. Our birth injury attorneys have handled many cerebral palsy, Erb’s palsy, facial paralysis, umbilical cord entrapment, fetal distress, brain damage and dystocia cases to successful completion. Many birth injuries and complications are attributable to the baby’s loss of oxygen and severe bleeding within the skull during the birth process.
Our birth injury lawyers been helping families with medical malpractice cases since 1990. We have successfully resolved birth injury cases involving numerous issues, including:
- Brain hypoxia
- Fetal distress
- Shoulder dystocia
- Brachial plexus
- Pre-eclampsia
- Placental abruption
- Erb’s palsy
- Cerebral palsy
- Severe jaundice
- Kernicterus
- Twin births
- Gestational diabetes
Call us today for a free consultation or text us from this page if your child suffered a birth injury. We will not charge you a fee to represent you until and unless we obtain a financial recovery on your behalf.
In general, California birth injury cases must be filed on or before the child’s 8th birthday per CCP 340.5.
How Can Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers Help Me?
If your baby has suffered a birth injury, you already have enough to do regarding giving your child the extra care they need. Our experienced birth injury attorneys can handle all communications and negotiations with medical providers, defense lawyers and insurance companies for you so you can focus on your family. Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers can help you by:
- Making sure insurance companies don’t get away with lowball settlement offers. Those without lawyers commonly find out they should have gotten way more money than they received after they receive their settlement.
- Handling all communications for you. We can manage insurance claims for you and respond to insurers for you.
- Filing a birth injury lawsuit on your behalf. We can file a lawsuit for you and make sure any deadlines applying to your case are met.
- Building a convincing case for you. We can secure evidence like testimony from experts, medical records and other documents which can prove that another party is liable for your child’s birth injury.
- Negotiating for you. We will tirelessly fight through the negotiations process in order to make sure any settlement you receive is fair and covers your losses as well as the costs of care your child may require for life.
Birth injury cases usually involve big insurance companies, and you probably lack the resources or know-how to single-handedly take on a behemoth insurance company. Our attorneys will handle every step of the legal process for you so you can focus on what’s important: your family.
Why Do I Need To File A Birth Injury Claim?
A child who suffers a birth injury might face numerous medical issues, such as cerebral palsy, brain damage, seizure disorders, spastic quadriplegia, or other severe neurological problems or developmental disabilities. Your child might not ever be capable of caring for themselves. Your child, along with their family, will face a lifetime of physical and emotional challenges, deal with enormous medical bills for things like surgeries, therapy, nursing, 24/7 attendant care and medications, and may require special education. The cost of providing your child with a good quality of life and long-term security may be enormous.
You will initially be shocked by having your child suffer a birth injury. However, that shock will be replaced with the realization of the challenges and complications you experience on a daily basis. You might require assistance taking care of a child who has profound disabilities. This might mean you have less time to give to your other kids. This might mean you or another family member needs to quit their job to take care of your kid. The costs of care and medication might not be completely covered by insurance. You might have to spend your savings because of this.
Financial compensation in a birth injury lawsuit can’t make up for your child’s birth injury and the effects it has on their life. However, it can help make sure your child’s needs are taken care of, especially once you’re not able to care for your child any longer.
Birth Injury Compensation
If your child suffered a birth injury, you may qualify for financial compensation in a birth injury claim or lawsuit. You may qualify for financial compensation for:
- Medical bills: You are probably already facing medical bills as a result of your child’s birth injury. Your child also may need medical care for the rest of their life because of their birth injury. You may qualify for financial compensation for all past and future medical expenses.
- Additional costs of healthcare: You may qualify for compensation for the costs of things such as counseling, occupational therapy, special equipment or vehicles, in-home care, modifications to your home and more.
- Lost wages: If you have had to miss time from work to take care of your child after their birth injury, you may be eligible for compensation for any wages you were unable to earn.
- Loss of earning capacity: You may have had to quit your job or work less hours long-term in order to care for your child after their birth injury. If so, you might qualify for compensation for any reduction of or loss of earning capacity caused by your child’s birth injury.
- Pain and suffering: You may qualify for compensation for any physical pain suffered by your child as the result of their birth injury. You might also be eligible to be compensated for any mental suffering you have endured due to your child’s birth injury.
Common Causes of Birth Injuries
- Poor use of vacuum extractors or forceps
- Failure to respond to emergencies in a timely fashion
- Refusal or delay in ordering a C-section
- Placentia abruption
- Delayed C-section
- Difficulties in breech delivery
- Lack of care by a medical professional immediately after birth
- Medical errors
Should you require assistance with a your child’s birth injury claim, please contact a birth injury attorney at Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers immediately for a free case evaluation by calling us, texting us from this page or completing the free case review form to the right. Our birth trauma attorneys have the experience and resources to handle your birth injury lawsuit aggressively. We have been handling medical malpractice lawsuits successfully for over 30 years.
Risk Factors for Child Birth Injuries
- Premature birth
- Large babies
- Dystocia
- Prolonged labor
- Birthing position
- Anoxia
- Cephalopelvic disproportion
- Improper use of forceps or vacuum extraction
- Umbilical cord entrapment
- Inadequate care during pregnancy
Child Birth Injuries Resulting From Medical Malpractice
Birth often cannot proceed normally because of a defect of the cervix or weak uterine contractions. Breech births, in which the feet or buttocks emerge first, and transverse births, in which the child is positioned across the uterus, usually require obstetrical intervention, such as forceps delivery, manually turning the baby, or performing a cesarean section.
About 10% of pregnancies terminate in deliveries that are too early, producing (after at least 200 days of gestation) premature infants requiring special care. Birth of a fetus prior to about 200 days of gestation is termed a miscarriage; birth within the first three months, an abortion. Stillbirth is the delivery of a dead child.
Complications Of Childbirth Affecting Newborns Include
- Infant blindness due to gonorrhea infection: now largely eliminated by routine administration of silver nitrate to the eyes.
- Retrolental fibroplasia: a form of blindness common for some years in premature infants that was found to result from administration of high concentrations of oxygen and is now largely avoided.
- Erythroblastosis fetalis, or Rh disease: now largely preventable.
- Puerperal fever: an infection of the mother’s genital tract once common following labor and delivery, has now been largely eliminated by preventive hygiene, especially in labor, and by antibiotic therapy.
How Can A Birth Injury Be Proven?
Evidence is necessary to prove a birth injury. This evidence may include medical records, a diagnosis, and expert testimony from birth injury experts.
Examples of documents which may be important evidence for your claim include:
- Medical records from the hospital covering any care received by the mother through the pregnancy, underlying conditions the mother had, any complications which occurred, the results of blood tests, and medications.
- Birthing center or hospital records from where the delivery and labor happened.
- Notes from a doctor about delivery, labor and any care given postpartum.
- Medical records from a pediatrician which document the medical status of the newborn and any care received by the child after birth.
- Medical records regarding the baby from a neonatal unit or nursery.
- Testimony from expert witnesses, who can testify about the quality of any medical care given to the child and mother, the birth injury sustained by the child, their prognosis and diagnosis, and how much medical care and treatment will be needed by the child.
- Statements from witnesses of the birth such as nurses, technicians and doctors.
- Videos and photos of the child when they were born and as the child grows.
When birth injury claims allege negligence, one common defense against the allegations is that the birth injury would have happened even in the absence of negligence.
Identifying negligence by a medical facility or a medical facility’s staff is the first step when trying to obtain compensation for a birth injury. After that comes successful navigation of California’s court system. This will involve filing a lawsuit with the assistance of an experienced birth injury lawyer like the lawyers at Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers.
Who Is Liable For A Birth Injury?
Liability regarding birth injuries will depend on multiple factors, such as what type of mistake or error occurred and if that mistake may have been avoided. A nurse or doctor may have made an error such as a misdiagnosis, administering improper medication, or failing to safely deliver an infant. In these cases, the nurse or doctor might be held liable. A medical outfit or hospital might also be held liable for birth injuries.
If you want to learn more regarding liability for birth injuries and medical malpractice lawsuits, call one of our experienced birth injury lawyers today. We’ll work tirelessly for you to ensure your child receives the treatment they deserve, and to ensure an insurance company fulfills any obligation to pay for past, present and future medical bills related to your child’s birth injury.
Who Has A Valid Claim In A Birth Injury Lawsuit?
In birth injury lawsuits, the injured child has a valid claim for damages. However, the child’s parents also have a valid claim for damages.
The parents can file a separate malpractice claim and will be eligible for damages for medical bills, both past and future, as well as any other costs needed to care for the child until the child becomes an adult.
A very large amount of compensation can be awarded for parents’ medical expenses, both past and future. Some birth injuries are so serious that the injured child will require 24/7 medical care until they become an adult. Parents are eligible for compensation for the complete cost of such medical care. This is usually true even when the expenses are covered by an insurer or another third party.
What Is The Birth Injury Lawsuit Process?
A birth injury lawyer with Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers will work tirelessly to prove another party is liable for your child’s injuries and obtain the largest financial recovery possible in the shortest time possible.
Each case is different. However, most lawsuits involving birth injuries involve the following steps:
1. Contact
This is when you contact a birth injury lawyer like Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers for a free consultation.
2. Investigation
Your lawyer will perform an investigation into any facts you presented to them to find out if your claim is valid.
3. Filing A Lawsuit
If your lawyer accepts your case, they will file a lawsuit against the party they feel is responsible for your child’s birth injury.
4. The Discovery Process
The discovery process involves attorneys for both sides collecting information and evidence in order to attempt to prove their case.
5. The Mediation Process
Both parties will present evidence with the assistance of a mediator like a judge to try to reach a fair settlement, avoiding a trial in the process.
6. Settlement
If your lawyer is able to prove that the defendant was responsible for your child’s birth injury, and that the injury was preventable, the defendant will probably offer a settlement out of court to avoid trial.
7. Trial
Most cases do not go to court. However, if the two sides aren’t able to reach an agreeable settlement, your birth injury lawyer will represent you in court in a trial. Settlements are sometimes reached during a trial. When they are not, a judge or jury will decide who the case is won by.
Why Contact Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers?
The medical negligence attorneys at Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers understand your options and can help. If you or a loved one has experienced any birth injuries to an infant as a result of medical malpractice, please contact our birth injury lawyers immediately by calling us, texting us from this page or completing the free case review form to the right. One of our experienced medical malpractice attorneys will respond to you within 24 hours.
Our birth injury lawyers are experienced at representing seriously injured infants and their families in birth injury cases. We have successfully handled countless birth injury lawsuits to completion, and we have recovered over $750 million for our clients.
Call us today for a free consultation. Medical professionals should be held accountable when their negligence leads to birth injuries. You may be eligible for financial compensation in a medical malpractice lawsuit.
