Medical malpractice is illegal. As such, speaking with a personal injury attorney about the quality of your prenatal care can help you understand what your options are if anything goes wrong.
If medical professionals failed to provide reasonable care to ensure the health and safety of you and your child, you may be eligible to receive compensation for any injuries to yourself or the infant.
How Do Attorneys Help You Build Your Birth Injury Case?
As heartbreaking as tragedies relating to pregnancy and childbirth are, it is important to move quickly so that the facts are not lost over time. Working with an experienced personal injury lawyer will help you collect the proper evidence to demonstrate that injuries (or death) could have been prevented if medical staff adequately performed their duties.
A critical element of building your medical malpractice case is working with the proper medical professionals tasked with examining records and eyewitness accounts. Your attorney will help you find the right person to support your claim with expert opinion, demonstrating the doctor’s negligence.
What Is Medical Malpractice?
Not every medical mishap can be attributed to medical malpractice. Doctors and nurses generally do the utmost to treat patients well, and in spite of everyone’s best efforts, some patients can be further injured during treatment.
That being said, there are cases where medical staff are negligent. The law requires that they provide a reasonable level of care to prevent further injury. Additionally, they are required to demonstrate their expertise by following protocols to help patients recover as soon as possible.
If any medical staff member (typically a doctor) falls short of these expectations, they are liable for that patient’s well-being. Withholding (or delaying) treatment, failing to diagnose, and “rookie” mistakes during routine or specialized care are just a few examples of medical malpractice.
Prenatal care is a realm in which doctors might be guilty of negligence. They are required by law to pick up on common signs of delivery complications and address concerns as quickly as possible. Additionally, doctors should know to treat the child and mother with proper care. Failure to do so leads to trauma for both patients, which can lead to serious injury.
What Are Some Common Forms of Prenatal Negligence Leading To Birth Injury?
Proper prenatal care begins long before birth. Birth injuries most likely occur for one of two reasons: lack of oxygen to the baby’s brain or trauma to the child’s body.
During birth, the umbilical cord provides oxygen to the child through blood flow from the mother. If the cord is somehow damaged or constricted before or during birth, the child could suffer from asphyxiation or brain damage.
As the baby’s source of life support, it is vital that mothers are as healthy as possible. Stress or decreased blood pressure can have a significant effect on the unborn child’s oxygen supply. Doctors who fail to catch symptoms or don’t take action to protect the baby and the mother could be guilty of causing birth injuries.
Birth injury trauma can occur if a doctor handled the baby too roughly before or during birth. Poorly executed c-sections can also cause trauma to the mother and the baby. Birth injury trauma frequently leads to head and shoulder injuries for the new baby.
A brain hemorrhage (bleeding inside the skull/brain) and spinal injuries are among the most serious infant injuries resulting from doctor negligence and trauma during birth. Many others–like bruising, broken blood vessels, minor brachial plexus injuries (BPIs), and even fractures–may heal completely in time, but not before the baby experiences great discomfort and is required to have additional care.
What Is the Statute of Limitation for Filing a Medical Malpractice Claim?
Like most personal injury claims, you have two years from the date of the injuries to file your birth injury claim.
For more information about how an Indiana attorney can help you with your birth injury case, contact Stewart & Stewart at 800-333-3529 or visit our website.