Birth Injury Law






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A Birth Injury is a profound injury or death resulting from trauma to the baby or mother, due to medical mistakes, negligence, malpractice, or flawed hospital policy during the birthing process. This means a medical professional failed to use the appropriate degree of skill and care that would be used by a reasonable medical professional under similar circumstances.

What is Birth Injury Law? This is a subset of medical malpractice law and includes personal injury cases stemming from a failure to adequately respond to the following circumstances: maternal or fetal bleeding; fetal distress or anoxia (lack of oxygen); umbilical cord complications; the need for a cesarean section; infections; the anticipation of a large baby and related complications; and other maternal health complications. Injury can also result from incompetent or improper use of forceps or a vacuum extractor.

Negligent prenatal care can also result in harm to the baby and/or mother. This can include the failure to diagnose the mother’s medical condition; failure to identify birth defects; failure to identify an ectopic pregnancy; or failure to diagnose a disease that could be contagious to the baby.

Birth injury cases are generally classified by two types: brain injury, or anoxic brain injury, where the physician or the medical staff failed to properly monitor the birth process with fetal monitoring and the failure to order a caesarean section in a timely fashion; and dystocia, which is caused by the failure to properly help the baby down the vaginal canal during a vaginal delivery and can result in various types of palsy and other complications.

Birth injury lawsuits seek to provide the families of the injured baby with financial compensation for the child’s injury.

To consult State legislation for filing a personal injury claim please see our Personal Injury Statute of Limitations page.

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Birth Injury Law - US

  • ABA - Cerebral Palsy, Erb’s Palsy and Birth Injury Blog

    This blawg describes medical procedures and treatments relevant to birth injury litigation and highlights recent birth injury verdicts.

  • Birth Brain Injury - Cause and Cure

    The objective of this web site is to prevent neonatal cerebral palsy (CP) and to eliminate brain injury litigation from obstetrical practice.

  • Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Program

    Welcome to the website of one of the most innovative programs in the United States. Designed to assure access to obstetrical services for all residents of the Commonwealth, the Virginia Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Program also has distinguished itself by assuring superior care for admitted children.

  • Cerebral Palsy Information

    Cerebral palsy is a group of disorders that hinder control of movement. It is caused by an injury to the brain during pregnancy, around the time of birth, or shortly after birth. This brain damage may be caused by several factors depending on the type, the onset, and the health history of mother and child. Cerebral palsy is either congenital (present at birth) or acquired after birth.

  • Medical Malpractice and Childbirth

    Childbirth is a very risky medical procedure. The risk of a poor outcome for mother or child is high relative to many other medical procedures. Poor outcomes that can result from childbirth include fetal death, stillbirth, maternal death, birth injury, birth defects, brain damage (e.g. cerebral palsy), neonatal infection, maternal infections, and numerous other issues. Not surprisingly, the rate of medical malpractice involving childbirth and birth injury is higher than many other medical areas.

Articles on HG.org Related to Birth Injury Law

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