The birth of a child is often the most joyous time in a parent’s life, and most baby deliveries go relatively smoothly. But complications can arise during both pregnancy and delivery, potentially resulting in injury to the baby.

In situations such as these, where the harm was avoidable, it is important that the legal rights of both baby and parent are fully safeguarded.

A birth injury to a baby occurs due to a complication in the labor or delivery process. It has been estimated that, for every 1,000 babies born in the United States, five will be injured during birth. Birth injury malpractice can happen because of an obstetrician’s use of an improper medical technique during delivery, or through improper use of a medical device such as forceps or a vacuum. Resulting harm to the baby can vary from a lack of oxygen to severe head injuries.

The most common birth injuries are:

• Cerebral palsy
• Oxygen deprivation
• Mental retardation
• Erb’s palsy
• Klumpke’s palsy
• Brachial plexus

Preparing Your Birth Injury Lawsuit

Your actions before you take legal action or consult with a birth injury lawyer can have a significant impact on your lawsuit. If your child has suffered a birth injury, keep the following tips in mind as you work through doctors’ appointments, conversations with insurance companies, or consultations with an attorney:

• Get the right medical attention for your child. Aside from the obvious need to address your child’s medical concerns, in order to properly determine the value of your case, you will need to know the complete costs of medical treatment. As you work with doctors, make sure to get information about the immediate medical needs, and the necessary treatment in the short term or long term future.
• Document everything. After a serious birth injury, you will receive information and correspondence from a variety of sources. Keep track of documents pertaining to your child’s medical needs, file all bills that accumulate during the process, ask for physician’s diagnosis in writing, and hold onto every letter or email from the hospital or any insurance carrier.
• Get all the information about the birth. It will be up to your birth injury lawyer and expert witnesses to determine if there was an error made during the birth, but you will need to help gather information about what occurred. Write down or record your recollections of the birth as soon as possible, and make sure your birth injury lawyer has names of every person who treated you from the minute you walked into the hospital. The more details about your hospital experience – including all your conversations and treatment from the moment you walked in – the better.

Birth Injury Lawsuits

Birth injury legal help in the form of a birth injury lawsuit can not only help you get answers to some of the tough questions you may have about your child’s condition, it can also help ease some of the financial burden of caring for a child with special needs. Birth injury legal help may also help prevent those responsible for birth injury malpractice from harming another child.