Birth Injury

When something goes wrong during labor or delivery, and a newborn suffers an injury or experiences health problems, it can be difficult for parents to understand what happened and why. Healthcare providers’ explanations may not tell the whole story, especially if it involves mistakes made during labor and delivery. If your child suffered a birth injury, you should meet with a birth injury lawyer for a free consultation. While not every birth injury is caused by an act of medical malpractice, an experienced birth injury lawyer, working with medical experts, can evaluate the facts of your case and advise whether or not you have a claim for compensation.

After a birth injury, parents need to know three essential things: 1) What is my child’s condition and prognosis, 2) What treatment or other care does my child need for their injury or condition, and 3) What caused my child’s injury? The first step is to discuss your child’s injury with the treating physician or obstetrician involved in your child’s labor and delivery. However, your physician may not be entirely forthcoming about the cause of your child’s injury, especially if mistakes were made that may have contributed to the injury. 

That is why you should also meet with an experienced birth injury lawyer as soon as possible to discuss your child’s condition. Additionally, keep track of all expenses, doctor’s visits, procedures, medications, and other aspects of your child’s treatment, and make notes or keep a journal reflecting how your child’s condition manifests itself and affects their daily life, as well as yours. All of this information can be valuable evidence if and when you seek compensation for your child’s birth injuries. 

A statute of limitations is a law that sets forth the period within which you must file a lawsuit for a particular type of claim. If you file a suit after the applicable statute of limitations has passed, a judge will likely dismiss it. In Maine, parents pursuing a birth injury claim on their child’s behalf must file suit within three years of the alleged act of medical malpractice that caused their injury. If the malpractice included a series of mistakes, that three years begins on the date of the last act of malpractice. In the case of a minor suing on their own behalf, they must file suit within six years of the act of malpractice or within three years after they reach age 18, whichever comes first.

The nature and impact of a birth injury on a child and their family vary from case to case. That means birth injury compensation also varies from case to case. Generally, however, compensation for a birth injury involves two types of damages. “Economic damages” reflect the hard costs arising from a birth injury, including the cost of past and future medical care, rehabilitation expenses, special education expenses, and the loss of future earning capacity. “Non-economic damages” involve more intangible, but just as real, losses like pain and suffering and loss of quality of life. Such damages can be substantial in cases involving life-long injuries and cognitive disabilities.

Birth injuries occur when a newborn suffers an injury or health complications during labor or delivery. Birth injuries often result from physical pressure the child experiences moving through the birth canal or because they are deprived of oxygen during or near the time of birth. While unavoidable complications cause many birth injuries, birth injuries often occur because doctors, nurses, and other delivery room personnel make mistakes. 

A birth injury is not the same as a congenital disability (also referred to as a birth defect). While birth injuries happen during labor and delivery, congenital disabilities develop during pregnancy. Congenital disabilities typically involve problems with the child’s nervous system, organs, or bones.

Cerebral palsy is a group of conditions that involve damage to the brain and nervous system functions. Abnormal brain development in the womb is sometimes the cause of cerebral palsy, but it can also develop due to a lack of oxygen to the infant’s brain during labor and delivery. 

Cerebral palsy either impairs or significantly impairs motor functions and can affect: 

• Muscle control and coordination
• Body movement
• Reflexes
• Muscle tone
• Motor skills
• Learning
• Sight
• Hearing
  

Cerebral palsy is not degenerative – meaning it doesn’t become progressively worse as the child gets older. But the condition is permanent and incurable. Many, if not most, individuals with cerebral palsy can live happy and productive lives, but severe cases of cerebral palsy may require constant, lifelong, and expensive medical care and attention.

Erb’s palsy is a condition that arises due to damage caused to the child’s brachial plexus, a nerve network that runs from the neck of a newborn down through the shoulders and then to the arms and hands. Located in the shoulders and neck, the brachial plexus is particularly vulnerable to damage during childbirth. A brachial plexus injury will often occur during delivery when a baby’s shoulder becomes stuck on the mother’s pubic bone. Erb’s palsy can develop when these nerves suffer significant damage and cause loss of sensation, muscle weakness, or paralysis of muscles in the shoulder area.