A birth injury lawyer helps families impacted by medical mistakes made during childbirth hold negligent doctors accountable and seek financial compensation. This money can be used to help pay for medical treatments, long-term care, and more. See if a top birth injury attorney may be able to pursue justice for your family.
What Are Birth Injury Lawyers?
A birth injury lawyer is a specialized personal injury attorney who helps families take legal action for birth injuries caused by medical negligence or malpractice.
Birth injuries can occur when a medical professional makes a preventable error before, during, or shortly after the birthing process.
Sadly, birth injuries can leave children with lifelong physical, developmental, and intellectual disabilities. The lifetime cost of care for a person with a serious birth injury is often over $1 million, which many parents may not be able to afford.
By working with a birth injury attorney, you may be able to secure compensation to help pay for these costs. Your attorney can also ensure that the negligent doctor is held responsible and prevent them from harming another infant.
How Birth Injury Attorneys Help Families
When taking legal action for your child’s condition, a birth injury attorney can make the process as easy and stress-free as possible. They have the experience and resources needed to handle a wide variety of cases.
A birth injury lawyer can:
- Explain your rights and provide legal advice
- Build your case by gathering evidence, like medical records, testimony from medical experts, and witness statements, showing what went wrong
- File your birth injury lawsuit with the appropriate court before any legal deadlines
- Negotiate settlements with all negligent health care providers and their insurance companies
- Take your case to trial and pursue a verdict if a settlement isn’t reached
Attorneys who focus on birth injury medical malpractice cases are best positioned to get favorable results for families like yours and maximize the compensation they may receive. They can handle all aspects of a lawsuit, so you can focus on caring for your child.
See if we can connect you with an experienced birth injury lawyer near you during a free case review.
Birth Injuries & Medical Malpractice
If your child has a birth injury, you may find yourself wondering what went wrong and if you could have done anything to prevent the situation from happening.
In some cases, birth injuries are not avoidable or anyone’s fault. However, in other instances, birth injuries are caused by a health care provider’s error.
Some examples of medical errors that can cause birth injuries include:
- Birth trauma indicated by low oxygen levels or heart rate, leading to a brain injury
- Failing to perform an emergency cesarean section (C-section)
- Ignoring signs of fetal distress or hypoxia (lack of oxygen)
- Misusing forceps or a vacuum extractor
- Not diagnosing or treating a maternal infection
- Yanking too hard on an infant’s arm while they are in the birth canal
Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals have a duty to uphold a high standard of care when treating patients. When they fall short, they can — and should — be held accountable.
Types of Cases a Birth Injury Attorney Handles
A birth injury attorney has the skills and resources to handle cases involving many different types of injuries.
Some common birth injury case types include:
- Birth asphyxia (oxygen deprivation)
- Brain damage
- Cerebral palsy
- Erb’s palsy (brachial plexus palsy)
- Jaundice and kernicterus
- Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC)
- Newborn cephalohematoma
- Shoulder dystocia
- Skull fractures
- Spinal cord injuries
- Umbilical cord problems
- Wrongful death
Labor and delivery staff are trained to detect problems in advance and act quickly to reduce the risk of harm to the mother and newborn. A failure to do so may be considered birth injury medical malpractice.
If you have a case, a birth injury lawyer will gather evidence to show malpractice may be to blame for your child’s injury. They’ll vigorously fight for the compensation your family deserves.
Settlements and Verdicts Secured by Lawyers for Birth Injuries
It’s not unusual for a birth injury lawsuit to provide compensation of $1 million or more.
Together, the birth injury attorneys in the LawFirm.com network have recovered over $917 million for families across the country affected by birth injuries.
Notable settlements and verdicts secured by our partner lawyers include:
- $10.4 million to a Pennsylvania family for a child with cerebral palsy
- $8 million for the family of a child injured by a vacuum extractor in New York
- $7.8 million to a child in Florida who developed cerebral palsy from a birth injury
- $6 million for the family of a child with cerebral palsy in California
- $6 million to a New York family with a child with untreated jaundice
- $5.1 million for a Texas child who suffered birth asphyxia
- $5 million to a Massachusetts child who experienced brain damage during delivery
- $4.5 million for a child with Erb’s palsy in Illinois
- $4.1 million to a child who suffered fetal distress and umbilical cord strangulation
- $2.8 million for the family of a child diagnosed with Erb’s palsy in Connecticut
- Over $2 million to a child with a brachial plexus injury in North Carolina
Settlement amounts for birth injuries tend to be high due to the serious nature of these injuries that often require a lifetime of care.
How Settlement Compensation Can Help
Settlements secured by a birth injury lawyer can be used to help pay for expenses related to your child’s care and provide them with the best future possible.
Birth injury settlement money can help pay for:
- Adaptive equipment
- Doctor visits
- Home modifications
- In-home care
- Lost wages
- Medications
- Mobility aids
- Motorized wheelchairs
- Special education
- Surgery
- Therapy
- And more
A birth injury lawyer can fight for a settlement that provides enough compensation to cover your child’s medical expenses and lifetime costs of care.
Qualities of a Top Birth Trauma Lawyer
A top birth trauma lawyer will have what it takes to stand up to deep-pocketed medical malpractice insurance companies and maximize financial payouts for clients.
Here are 5 qualities to look for in a birth injury lawyer:
- Experience: The best birth injury lawyers have many years of experience handling medical malpractice cases involving injuries at birth.
- National presence: Many birth injury attorneys work at national birth injury law firms that take cases in all 50 states. These firms also have local law offices to help people in different areas of the country.
- No upfront or hourly fees: A top birth injury attorney handles cases on a contingency basis, which means they take a percentage of your settlement or verdict award as payment at the end of your case. If they don’t recover money for you, you pay nothing.
- Resources: They have many resources to help support your claim, like registered nurses on staff and access to labor and delivery specialists. These resources can help prove your child’s injury was caused by medical negligence.
- Track record of success: Ideally, you should look for a birth injury lawyer who has a history of securing significant compensation for families like yours.
All of the birth injury lawyers in the LawFirm.com network have these qualities and more. They’re also caring and compassionate legal practitioners who understand the pain and uncertainty that comes with a birth injury.
Get a free case review now to find out if you can work with a top birth injury lawyer in our network who can seek justice for your child.
When Should I Contact a Childbirth Injury Attorney?
It’s important to contact a childbirth injury attorney as soon as possible. There’s only a limited amount of time to file a birth injury lawsuit due to laws known as statutes of limitations.
Although statutes of limitations vary by state, many give parents 2-3 years to file a claim. However, in some states, parents only have 1 year after the date of injury to take legal action.
The clock starts ticking on the date you discovered or should have discovered your child’s injury.
If you don’t file your lawsuit within the deadline, you won’t be able to pursue justice for your child’s injury in the future.
Even if you believe time has run out, reach out to an attorney as there may be exceptions that apply.
Get Help From a Childbirth Injury Lawyer
If your child suffered a preventable birth injury, you may be worried about your child’s future and how you’re going to pay for their medical expenses.
Your family should not pay the price for someone else’s carelessness.
An experienced birth injury lawyer can pursue financial compensation to help you secure top treatments and medical care for your child — providing you with peace of mind and your child with the best quality of life possible.
The birth injury lawyers in the LawFirm.com network never charge any upfront or hourly fees and have recovered over $917 million for families like yours.
Take action today: If you wait too long, you could lose your legal right to pursue compensation for your child’s birth injury forever.
