Birth Injury Claims

What is a Birth Injury?

A birth injury is an injury that happens during childbirth, however, sometimes a mistake made in the hospital shortly after a baby is born can also result in harm that is categorised with birth injuries.

Some of these injuries are physical, such broken bones, fractured skull, or paralysis of the arm or face. Other injuries are neurological or mental such as nerve damage that leads to palsy or brain or spinal cord damage. The consequence of birth injury can have a range of mild to severe and temporary to permanent repercussions.

Some children live their entire lives with cerebral palsy, a condition which itself varies in severity. A child born with cerebral palsy could have only slightly impaired movement and average intelligence while another could have cognitive impairment, difficulty eating and breathing, and changes so impaired that walking is impossible.

Other consequences of birth injuries are Erb’s palsy, which can cause paralysis, weakness, or loss of sensation in the arm to varying degrees. Brain damage that leads to epilepsy, cognitive impairments, developmental delays, and behavioural issues as a child grows older is also possible. Skull fractures ranging from small to large can cause severe and life-threatening consequences or could be mild and may not even be detected.

What is birth injury negligence?

Birth injuries can affect both the baby and the mother, and thus necessitating claims for birth injury. Birth injury negligence happens when medical experts either; fail to follow the correct procedures or when they carry them out in a substandard or inappropriate manner.

Birth Injury Negligence can also refer to a mother receiving a poor standard of care during her pregnancy. This care, in turn, leads to difficulties during labour and childbirth classified as “birth injuries”.

Examples of birth injury caused by negligence include:

There are a range of possible birth injuries, conditions, and illnesses that could occur as a result of birth injury negligence. The most common among these are cerebral palsy, Erb’s palsy, Klumpke’s palsy, perineal tears, nervous shock, and stillbirth.

There are cases where a baby birth injury is caused by some factor that could not be controlled for that reason the doctor could not prevent it from happening. However, sometimes the birth injury is caused by something preventable by the doctor or other health professional.

A typical example is forceps baby delivery. This is one of the causes of baby birth injury; it is when a doctor uses forceps to get a baby out through difficult labour this could require the use of too much force which could cause a fracture in the baby’s delicate body. Another instance is a case where a mother may show signs that her labour will be difficult or that her baby is unusually large. Yet, if the doctor fails to perform a caesarean section to avoid complications, the baby could suffer a birth injury during delivery.

Why do you need a Birth Injury Solicitor?

There is no doubt that having a baby is one of the most exciting times in many people’s lives. However, while advances in medicine and midwifery care aim to reduce the risks to mother and baby during birth, there are sadly times when things go wrong, sometimes with tragic consequences.

If you or your child has suffered a birth injury you may be entitled to substantial birth injury compensation. Legal liability is something that everyone in the medical community is aware of and would do anything to avoid the courtroom.

When you want to take legal actions for birth injury negligence, it begins with hiring a birth injury solicitor preferably one with experience. At nhsnegligenceclaim.com, our team of expert birth injury medical negligence lawyers can help and advise you about this. Although bringing a claim for compensation cannot reverse the injury caused, it can put in place help, support and treatment that individuals and their families often need.

It is very important that any solicitor instructed to bring a birth injury claim understands the full complexities of the injuries suffered, the individual’s needs as a result of the birth injury and the impact they are likely to have on an individual in future. Our team of medical negligence experts are experienced in investigating and pursuing birth injury claims for injury to the baby, such as cerebral palsy and Erb’s palsy, as well as injuries sustained by the mother.

We take care in handling medical negligence cases providing the support that families often need both in relation to bringing a legal claim and also practically coming to terms with what has happened and the day to day impact of the injuries suffered.

Birth Injury Compensation

Medical professionals have a duty of care in which they must take the maximum precautions and necessary action to ensure that a patient’s welfare is priority. If you or your child has been injured or harmed during childbirth due to mistakes or the negligence of a nurse, midwife, obstetrician, surgeon, consultant or other healthcare providers, you could be entitled to make a birth injury compensation claim.

A variety of factors can affect the outcome of a birth. These include:

• The competence of the medical staff, hospital facilities, availability of emergency care and the quality of diagnosis and monitoring of the health of the mother and child.

The birth injury or negligence could be associated with:

• Inadequate monitoring of the baby or mother
• Misdiagnosing a serious condition
• Mistakes made by a surgeon e.g. anaesthetic dosage
• Poor standard of care during the delivery
• Failure to treat or adequately treat serious post-birth complications in the mother
• Failure to identify and treat a secondary infection or other infections
• Oxygen deprivation to the baby which is the major cause of cerebral palsy in babies.
• Injuries associated with fetal head impaction, placenta or parts of the placenta retained
• Mistakes made in reading CTG results on a fetal heart monitor, and serious birth trauma to mother or baby.

If it can be shown that the treatment given to the mother or baby before, during or after birth fell below the standard of a reasonably competent health care professional, you may be entitled to make a compensation claim.

At nhsnegligenceclaim.com, our expert medical negligence solicitors specialize in birth injury claims. We have helped a good number of victims get the compensation they deserve to help them in their current condition.

Who is a Childbirth injury lawyer?

A childbirth injury lawyer is basically an attorney who specializes in representing plaintiffs on a contingent fee basis in medical malpractice cases involving birth injuries. Birth injury lawsuits are a special type of medical malpractice case. They involve allegations that doctors, hospitals or healthcare professionals breached the standard of care resulting in a birth injury.

How Much Can I Claim for a Birth Injury case?

No two birth injury cases are the same – even similar cases. In the UK, the compensation you can expect for a birth injury is dependent on a few factors. This includes the nature of your injury, the severity of injury, the impact of injury sustained on a person’s life, as well as the recovery time.

Take for instance, your baby suffers cerebral palsy as a result of birth injury negligence and has only developed an injury that caused partial impairment in movement. Another baby suffers similar condition with complete damage to the brain, the compensation amount for this child will be totally different from that of your baby.

Generally, when it comes to medical negligence claims, there are two broad classifications namely:

• General damages
• Special damages.

General Damages

For general damages, the compensation awarded is for issues in direct association with the accident. What this means is that you will only receive compensation based on the severity of the injuries or the impact of the birth injury, medical trauma or ongoing symptoms on you or your baby.

Special Damage

Birth injury claim for special damage – as with other medical negligence issues – is quite very different from claims for general damage.

For special damage, compensation is associated with financial redress for all other expenses incurred as a result of your birth injury. This includes all expenses made from the time of injury down to funding required should you need ongoing treatment. Some of these include:

• Loss of income/earnings
• Future loss of income/earnings
• Present and future medical costs
• Additional transport expenses

We understand that your desire to find out exactly how much your birth injury case may be worth should you choose to pursue a civil claim or lawsuit, hence our solicitors use a birth injury compensation calculator to give you an estimated value of your claim. The value given is not based on assumptions. Our experts take into account the myriad of factors that make a significant impact on your claim, the severity of your injury and impact on your life to present you a rough idea of a compensation amount that will help you determine whether or not your claim is worth pursuing.

How can we help with birth negligence claims?

We understand the devastating effects birth negligence can have on our client’s lives. Moreover, we will do all we can to help minimise the ill effects of your injury and live to your full potential. We support our clients by:

• Investigating their situation thoroughly to ascertain whether their claim has a good chance of success.
• Collecting and organising evidence to present a solid case to the responsible care provider that supports your claim for compensation, which can also include putting you in contact with the right independent medical experts for their assessment.
• Negotiating an acceptable amount of compensation based on your circumstances, and what claimants with similar injuries to yours have received in the past
• Representing you and supporting you should your case go to court.

No win no fee birth negligence claim

At nhsnegligenceclaim.com, any client who chooses us enjoys the privilege of a No win no fee agreement. What this means is that you will not be asked to pay any legal fees up front, until you are awarded compensation.

In the case where your claim is successful, your solicitor will make an agreed deduction from the overall settlement awarded to you. Our medical negligence solicitors will be sure to enlighten you on this at the onset.

Conversely, if your claim fails and you do not recover compensation, you will not be charged for any of that work. You will always be advised of alternative methods of funding before entering into a no win no fee agreement. Any deductions from an award of compensation to a child with a birth injury or lacking capacity will be approved by the court, so you can be assured that any deductions are fair.

Call NHS Negligence Claim to Start Your Claim

If you have been a victim of an avoidable birth injury, it is important that you seek the compensation you deserve as you may be entitled to tens of thousands of pounds in compensation.

At NHS Negligence Claim, we are available to help you start your claim anytime. Simply reach out to us to fill out our online assessment form for a free assessment of your claim.