Giving birth is a significant time in the life of a parent. Sometimes, however, the joy of bringing a little one into the world is marred by birth injuries suffered while delivering the baby. Not only do you have to deal with the birth injuries, you probably have some serious questions, as well.
Who or what caused the injury to occur? What long-term effects will the birth injuries have on the child’s future development? What can I do legally? Is a medical malpractice lawsuit in the best interest of myself and my child?
Lawsuits pursued due to birth injuries are one of many types of medical malpractice lawsuits. These cases can be very complicated, and are usually beyond the abilities of inexperienced attorneys or the average person. Our Law Office has 20 years of experience, during which we have helped many people with cases of birth injuries. We want to help you receive financial reimbursement for the pain and trauma that you have experienced.
Types of Birth Injuries and What Causes Them
The following is a list of a few of the types of birth injuries caused by negligence and medical malpractice:
Klumpke’s Palsy – paralysis of the child’s hands and forearms
Broken bones
Cerebral Palsy – injury of the brain often causes this motor condition, leading to the impairment of movement
Erb’s Palsy – this occurs when the shoulders and upper arms of the child are paralyzed. It is a type of Brachioplexus Palsy and can be caused by pulling excessively on the shoulders during delivery.
Brachioplexus Palsy – this can lead to paralysis of the child’s whole arm due to spinal nerve injury. It occasionally results from a forceps delivery.
Shoulder Dystocia – this happens when the head is delivered a long amount of time before the shoulders. This condition can then lead to Erb’s Palsy or Brachioplexus Palsy.
What Makes Birth Injury Lawsuits so Difficult to Pursue?
Tort reform has rendered medical malpractice lawsuits ever more difficult to pursue. The original purpose of this tort reform was to shield doctors from inconsequential charges against them. Thus, the standard of proof necessary to make a case for medical malpractice has been increased. This can present difficulties for those who have suffered birth injuries due to medical malpractice to receive appropriate compensation for their suffering. One result of this has been that many personal injury attorneys will no longer consider taking these cases, as they are so difficult to win.
Our Law Office has 20 years of experience fighting for families. We have experience dealing with these cases before and after the change in the laws. We have the knowledge necessary to build a rock-solid case against negligent medical professionals that result in birth injuries.
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The process of giving birth can be incredibly complex. The tiniest blunder can lead to devastating birth injuries. Due to these factors, proving that negligence resulted in birth injuries requires an experienced attorney. Some of the key components of a successful birth injury lawsuit are the testimony of expert witnesses, assessment of the birth injuries sustained by the child, and inquiring into the circumstances of the delivery by asking the medical staff questions. Our Law Office has the expert witnesses you need to make sure your case is strongly constructed.
If You or Your Child Have Suffered from Birth Injuries Due to Medical Negligence, Our Law Office Wants to Help You
Our Law Office has the benefit inherent in twenty years of experience necessary to help you if you have suffered from birth injuries. We are familiar with the necessary components of a successful medical malpractice lawsuit. We know how complicated such cases can be, and we are committed to taking the time and making the effort needed to win them. We want to make sure that those medical practitioners whose negligent behavior resulted in your child’s birth injuries are held liable for the suffering they have inflicted. Our proven track record of winning settlements of millions of dollars for our clients is known to the insurance companies, adjusters, and their lawyers since we have faced every major insurance company in the country. We are often able to negotiate fair settlements for our clients without even having to bring the case to court since the insurance companies frequently wish to avoid the hassle of a court case. In the event that a settlement agreement is not reached, we are willing and able to take the case to court to resolve the dispute. If you are dealing with the after-effects of birth injuries caused by medical malpractice or negligence, give us a call for your free consultation. We can provide answers to your legal questions and inform you of the steps we can take to help you.
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Cerebral Palsy if Often Caused by Birth Injury or Delivery Malpractice
If you are a parent and your child has recently been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, you probably have many questions that require answers. What is cerebral palsy? What causes this condition? Do you have a legal right to seek financial reimbursement if your child’s cerebral palsy was the result of medical negligence? Our Law Office has the answers you seek here.
The term cerebral palsy refers to a collection of conditions affecting motor function and coordination. Cerebral palsy may be diagnosed shortly after delivery or later, through the child’s first two or three years of life.
How does this happen? Sometimes, the brain suffers an injury that can lead to cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy can lead to lowered levels of motor coordination, abnormal bodily movement, and decreases in cognitive function. The location of brain damage establishes the type of cerebral palsy that affects the child. How severe the damage is depends on what type of cerebral palsy has been diagnosed. The symptoms of cerebral palsy may begin as little as a few months from the child’s birth. However, the symptoms are frequently not observed by either the doctors or the parents of the child until the delayed development of certain motor skills makes them more apparent. This observation usually happens around the first or second year of the child’s life. Sadly, no cure is yet available for cerebral palsy, although it can be treated through expensive medical care, therapy, and appropriate accommodations. Cerebral palsy may often be prevented during the pregnancy and subsequent childbirth through appropriate medical intervention. If a doctor could have taken steps during pregnancy to prevent the development of cerebral palsy in your child but did not, you have the legal right to seek financial restitution for your child’s condition. Our Law Office has twenty years of experience pursuing medical malpractice and birth injury claims. We know what to do to help you and your family recover economically in order for your child to receive the treatment they deserve.
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What Forms of Cerebral Palsy Are There?
There are four principal kinds of cerebral palsy that may have an effect on varying regions of the brain, each with its own symptoms. The following is a list of these kinds of cerebral palsy, as well as some insight into what can cause them:
Ataxic Cerebral Palsy – This type of cerebral palsy occurs with a lower frequency than do the other types. Sufferers of ataxic cerebral palsy find it difficult to balance and may be deficient in fine motor skills, which may make it harder to complete things like wielding utensils to eat dinner, tying shoelaces, writing with a pen and paper, and typing using a keyboard. What causes ataxic cerebral palsy? Trauma to the cerebellum can precede this form of cerebral palsy, resulting in weakened muscles. Children afflicted with ataxic cerebral palsy may experience tremors when attempting sudden movements. This type of cerebral palsy is often detected later in the child’s development when it becomes apparent that the child requires assistance to stand, or must go out of their way to achieve balance. Some other indicators of ataxic cerebral palsy include lack of balance when walking, speech that sounds slurred, a wide range of speech volume, and a noticeable deficiency in depth perception. This form of cerebral palsy also commonly includes hypotonia or low muscle tone.
Dyskinetic Cerebral Palsy or Athetoid Cerebral Palsy – This form of cerebral palsy accounts for about 10-20% of all cases. It can include both hypotonia and hypertonia. Hypertonia is when there is an unusual increase in muscle tension, rendering it harder for the child to stretch their muscles. Dyskinetic cerebral palsy sufferers typically have a reduced ability to control their movement and may suffer spontaneous spasms that they cannot control. They may also experience difficulty retaining an upright position or keeping themselves steady. This may make it harder to grasp objects, and it is at this point of the child’s development that this form of cerebral palsy is usually detected. What can cause dyskinetic or athetoid cerebral palsy? Generally, this form of the disease happens when doctors neglect to treat an infant’s abnormally high bilirubin levels. This can lead to damage to the basal ganglia. Because this is obviously avoidable, failure to attend to it is clear medical negligence. Increased treatment, accommodation, and therapy are all required to treat this form of cerebral palsy.
Spastic Cerebral Palsy – This form of cerebral palsy results from injury of the brain’s cortex. It accounts for 70-80% of cerebral palsy cases.
Children with spastic cerebral palsy are afflicted with hypertonia or increased muscle tension. Spastic cerebral palsy is classified differently according to what part of the body is affected. Spastic hemiplegia refers to cerebral palsy affecting one side of the body. Spastic diplegia affects the lower limbs and can result in a scissors gait and walking on tiptoes. This variation of spastic cerebral palsy is the most common. Children with spastic diplegia are often nearsighted. Spastic monoplegia refers to a single limb being affected by cerebral palsy, while spastic triplegia means that three limbs are affected. Spastic quadriplegia affects all four limbs to varying degrees. Children afflicted with spastic quadriplegia are unlikely to walk, or even to want to walk, due to the degree of difficulty inherent in the task. The effort required to overcome the muscle spasms and rigidity is usually entirely too great. Spastic cerebral palsy in general can also lead to early-onset arthritis.
Mixed Cerebral Palsy – If the brain is damaged in more than one area, multiple types of cerebral palsy can occur. This form of cerebral palsy is quite rare.
Experienced Medical Malpractice Attorneys are Necessary to Successfully Pursue Lawsuits Related to Cerebral Palsy
The brains of developing fetuses and babies can sustain injury or trauma from a number of sources. Legal experts in brain damage are needed to establish whether your child’s cerebral palsy was caused through the negligence of a doctor or other medical professional or due to random chance. The child’s development records will need to be evaluated to help make the assessment. These records should include everything through pregnancy and birth. Only by doing this can a legal expert make a determination on whether or not the resulting cerebral palsy was caused through preventable negligence on the part of a medical professional attending to your child. The amount of cerebral palsy caused due to negligence is about one-third of all cases. The child is then left to endure physical and mental suffering, while the family of the child struggles to meet the new financial demands the condition requires to treat appropriately.
The Medical Malpractice Attorneys of our Law Office are Here to Help You if Your Child is Afflicted with Cerebral Palsy Resulting from Medical Negligence
Has your child recently been diagnosed with cerebral palsy? Do you suspect that the condition resulted from medical negligence? Our Law Office can provide the services of an independent legal medical expert to go over your child’s medical records with a fine-toothed comb to discover evidence of negligence. Call us today to receive a free consultation that will remain confidential. We will discuss with you the particular details of your child’s condition, answer your legal questions, and let you know what we can do to help you. You and your child deserve fair economic restitution for the long scope of treatment required to deal with this disease.
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Birth Injury Lawsuit Lawyer Discusses Brachial Plexus, Shoulder Dystocia, and Erb’s Palsy
Birth injuries can happen to anyone and can result in very serious medical conditions. Numerous factors, even seemingly unrelated ones like a rushed or tired physician, can result in life-threatening or long-term disabling injuries to both mother and child and can occur during pregnancy or childbirth.
While some birth injuries happen merely because of the statistical inevitability of nature, many other birth injuries occur because of the negligent actions of doctors, nurses, obstetricians, and other medical personnel, who have been given the incredible responsibility of safely delivering babies. Sadly, just a minor error by a physician can result in a lifetime of medical treatment, care, and special accommodations for a child who has suffered an injury.
Erb’s Palsy is one of the most serious medical conditions that can arise from a birth injury and is characterized by a significant decline of strength and range of movement in the child’s arm and shoulder. This injury can translate into mounting medical and treatment bills that can quickly overwhelm a parent or guardian. If you find yourself in this situation and struggling with these issues, and are suspicious that medical malpractice may have occurred in the injury to your child, you may potentially qualify for compensation for your financial losses and medical expenses, ranging from past bills to future or impending costs for medical care. Our Erb’s palsy medical malpractice attorneys have compiled this brief article to highlight specific kinds of birth injuries that can lead to life-long health issues for a child.
For the past twenty years, the birth-injury attorneys of our Law Office have learned the legal complexities of birth injury lawsuits. We can help you understand the intricate issues involving birth injuries and the litigation needed to solve them. Often in trying to decipher if the birth injury was a tragic natural occurrence or caused by someone’s negligence, parents have no medical-legal experience to turn to when an injury occurs. We can help make that determination and then work diligently to make sure your case is resolved to your satisfaction and that you receive the compensation you deserve.
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Brachial Plexus Injuries
The brachial plexus is the bundle of nerves that connects the spine to the upper extremities, such as the shoulders, arms, and hands. Any excessive physical exertion or unusually difficult labor and delivery can injure both mother and child in different ways. Brachial plexus injuries can happen in exceptionally large babies, unusually small birth canals, awkward positioning of the baby in the womb, or abnormal activity in the uterus or womb. It is a fairly normal occurrence, afflicting nearly 20 percent of all childbirths. Dystocia is any excessive physical exertion or unusually difficult labor and delivery. It can injure both mother and child in different ways. Attending obstetricians and their medical staff have been trained to take reasonable care in delivering the baby without causing injury or harm because brachial plexus injuries frequently take place during childbirth.
In most cases, the medical staff bypasses vaginal delivery and performs an emergency caesarian section (c-section) or a high-forceps procedure. This can result in serious birth injuries to the brachial plexus nerve cluster that joins the hand, arm, and shoulder to the spine. In newborn babies, these nerves are clustered together in the shoulder before completely spreading throughout the entire arm in the adult arm and shoulder. The damage to these nerves can be significant, even to the point where the nerves become severed and lead to life-long debilities because of the way they’re bunched together. Sometimes surgery can be done to correct the damaged nerves.
Many doctors try to avert liability by telling the families of babies who suffered birth injuries, the harm that took place was unpreventable or was simply normal, under the circumstances. Some birth injuries happen just because of the statistical inevitability of nature, but others occur because of the negligent care from physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals, who were given the incredible responsibility of delivering the baby safely. Many of these injuries are diagnosed incorrectly; many times a doctor will recognize the obvious signs, yet simply hope the injury or symptoms will go away. In some cases, the nerve damage does go away.
For the past twenty years, the birth-injury attorneys of our Law Office have learned the legal complexities of birth injury lawsuits. We can help you understand the intricate issues involving birth injuries and the litigation needed to solve them. Often in trying to decipher if the birth injury was a tragic natural occurrence or caused by someone’s negligence, parents have no medical-legal experience to turn to when an injury occurs. We can help make that determination and then work diligently to make sure your case is resolved to your satisfaction and that you receive the compensation you deserve.
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Shoulder Dystocia
Erb’s palsy usually happens when the baby’s shoulder getting stuck in the birth canal, which is a condition known as shoulder dystocia. If a weary or inexperienced doctor pushes or pulls too forcefully in attempting to dislodge the baby, shoulder dystocia can cause the shoulder to dislocate, which damages the brachial plexus nerve cluster. If an infant’s shoulder becomes immovable, the delivery process becomes quite risky, because of the extreme pressure put on the baby’s head, neck, and umbilical cord. If action is not taken immediately to readjust the shoulder, the baby could suffer severe brain injury because of the lack of oxygen to the brain. This lack of oxygen is called hypoxia. If too great a pressure is applied, the brachial plexus nerves can become stretched, bruised torn, or even severed. On many occasions, in these severe situations, medical malpractice occurs because of the aggressive or negligent behavior of health care professionals.
Erb’s Palsy
Erb’s Palsy most often arises from the condition of shoulder dystocia as mentioned above. Erb’s Palsy causes the muscles in the arm to lack adequate stimulation by the brain, which leaves the arm immobile or very weak, depending on the severity of the brachial plexus nerve injury.
Erb’s Palsy should be detected soon after birth by the attending physician and staff because the symptoms are immediately obvious—babies can’t grip with the affected hand, lack voluntary movement in the affected arm, and hold their arm tightly pinned against their body, cocked at a 90-degree angle. Occasionally, less severe brachial plexus nerve injuries can be treated and corrected with proper treatment or specialized surgery by the attending physician. Erb’s Palsy, however, creates lifelong disabilities that require extensive treatment and therapy, including specialized adaptive technologies and accommodations. However, proper delivery techniques can prevent injuries to the brachial plexus nerves.
Call Our Erb’s Palsy Lawyers
The attorneys at our Law Office have been helping families recover from birthing process injuries for over twenty years. We understand how to navigate the rough waters of medical malpractice law, unlike many attorneys who simply avoid these type cases because they are too complicated and challenging to win. We will devote the time required to build a solid case to make sure those responsible for your baby’s shoulder dystocia, brachial nerve trauma, or Erb’s Palsy are made accountable. We’ve won millions of dollars in settlements from every major insurance carrier in the U.S. The insurance company adjusters and defense lawyers are familiar with our successful track record. As a result, our clients frequently receive fair settlement offers without having to go to trial. Our attorneys can ensure you get the best results possible so that your child receives the best treatment possible and compensation for the mental and physical trauma they have suffered in this ordeal. If your child has been injured in childbirth because of a medical professional’s negligence, call the birthing injury attorneys at our Law Office for a free consultation. We can answer your specific questions and help you make an informed decision.
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