What You Need to Know About Birth Injuries
A birth injury suffered by either a mother or a child may be medical malpractice. If you or your child sustained an injury during the delivery process, schedule a free consultation at once – with no charge or obligation – to discuss your rights with an Augusta birth injury attorney.
If you are expecting to be a parent, congratulations! But keep reading, because if a birth injury should happen during the delivery procedure, you will need a medical malpractice attorney’s help to recover the compensation and to win the justice that you and your child may need.
Despite a variety of medical advances and general adherence to proven safety procedures, birth injuries still happen far too often in the United States. Every year about 25,000 newborns in the U.S. suffer a birth injury because of a medical provider’s negligence.
What Are Your Rights as a Parent?
Birth injuries are sometimes disabling, sometimes permanent, and are almost always preventable. If medical malpractice causes a birth injury in Georgia or South Carolina, state law entitles the parents to monetary compensation for the child’s continuing medical care and treatment.
Parents should also know that in birth injury cases, the delivery room doctor may not be the only party with liability. One of your attorney’s first tasks in a birth injury case is to identify all potentially liable parties.
When a clinic, nurse, anesthesiologist, pharmaceutical company, or any other party providing medical care, services, or products linked to a birth was negligent, that party may also have liability for a birth injury and may be named as a defendant in a medical malpractice claim.
How Are Hospitals Sometimes Liable for a Birth Injury?
Every hospital is obligated to run a comprehensive background check before hiring a new employee. An applicant’s education, training, and licenses must be confirmed before the applicant is hired.
If a full background check isn’t conducted, and if a negligence, recklessness, or abuse issue arises with that employee, the hospital may have liability for hiring negligence or for negligent supervision.
Even physicians must be subject to background checks before they are allowed hospital privileges. An incompetent physician must never be allowed by a hospital to work with patients or to perform surgery.
Hospitals also must have adequate personnel – enough doctors and nurses on-site – to care appropriately for patients twenty-four hours a day every day.
How Are Pharmaceutical Companies Sometimes Liable for Birth Injuries?
Can you sue a drug manufacturer for your child’s birth injury? If the company fully informed your doctor about any known risks linked to a specific drug, the manufacturer may not have liability, and the liability for a birth injury may be solely the physician’s.
Pharmaceutical companies are legally obligated to ensure their products are safe when used as intended. The doctor’s role is to ensure that the drug and the dosage are safe and appropriate. If a drug company fails to inform a doctor fully about a drug’s risks, and if a birth injury occurs, the company in some instances may be liable.
However, rather than defective pharmaceuticals, the more typical cause of birth injuries like brachial plexus injury, cerebral palsy, and Erb’s palsy is negligence on the part of the delivery room staff. These types of birth injuries are almost always preventable.
How Can Medical Negligence Injure Newborns?
Oxygen deprivation to a child during the birth process may result in HIE, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. HIE is often fatal, but children who survive may suffer cerebral palsy and heart, lung, or kidney damage.
An unnecessary cesarean section considerably raises the risk of a birth injury, but if a necessary cesarean section is not performed, there is also an elevated risk.
Delivery room personnel should be able to deal with any complication during the delivery, and the failure to prevent birth injuries that are preventable is usually medical malpractice. However, not all birth injuries are caused by medical negligence. Birth injuries may have a number of causes.
What Steps Can Parents Take?
If a doctor, nurse, another medical provider, or a hospital committed medical negligence that resulted in a birth injury, taking legal action to recover compensation is a parent’s right.
In Georgia or South Carolina, a mother who has sustained a birth injury and the parent or parents of a child who was injured at birth should be advised and represented by an Augusta birth injury lawyer as soon as possible after the birth.
What Will a Birth Injury Lawyer Do on Your Behalf?
When birth-related injuries happen in or near Augusta or anywhere in Georgia or South Carolina, parents must reach out to an Augusta birth injury attorney to review the details and records of the injury and birth.
A parent must have reliable legal advice and guidance as soon as possible after an injury to either the mother or child (or both). Your lawyer will discuss your rights, explain your options, and recommend the best way to proceed, which could mean a medical malpractice lawsuit.
After scrutinizing the details of your case, your attorney will identify the parties that may have liability and will determine if bringing a lawsuit is your best option. In birth injury cases, medical malpractice attorneys provide a parent’s first consultation at no cost and with no obligation.
What Will It Cost Parents to Seek Justice?
Moreover, attorneys handle these cases on a contingent fee basis, which means that their fees are contingent on representing your claim successfully. You pay no attorney’s fee until and unless your birth injury attorney recovers compensation on your behalf.
If you or your child is a birth injury victim, and if you and your attorney can prove it, the law will be on your side, and you will be compensated for your birth injury medical costs and related losses.
In catastrophic cases, a birth injury may necessitate life-long medical treatment and care. Parents in these circumstances must be represented by a medical malpractice attorney who will advocate aggressively for the maximum compensation amount that is available.
When Should Parents Speak to an Attorney?
A birth injury is almost always a preventable tragedy, and the parents and children who suffer these tragedies deserve justice. If you or your child is the victim of a preventable birth injury, speak to an attorney at once.
Take advantage of the opportunity to learn more about your rights and how the law will apply in your own birth injury case. Schedule your no-cost legal consultation – today – with an Augusta birth injury lawyer.
