A birth injury case is devastating to new and experienced parents. To learn that seconds or minutes after birth that their child may experience life-changing injuries is heartbreaking. But it can also cause financial stress on the family. A family may not have prepared for taking home a baby with medical needs or to adapt their home to fit the baby’s medical and living needs.
A personal injury attorney can help you initiate action against the doctor, midwife, or medical team that was responsible for the injury of your child during birth. Meeting with an attorney can help you dig into what options are available and if a civil case is the right way to handle the neglect involved in your case.
Medical Malpractice and Personal Injury
Medical malpractice is a serious accusation, but in Texas, it doesn’t really carry the weight that you would imagine. Because of the countless cases of medical malpractice place doctors and hospitals, there is a $250,000 cap on medical malpractice claims.
Some famous cases made it nearly impossible for victims of medical malpractice to get the full compensation that they need..
However, medical malpractice still falls under the personal injury umbrella. What should happen if you have a birth injury after giving birth in the Texas hospital is that you would file a civil court claim against the doctor’s medical team or hospital. You would file a claim for your child, the victim of the medical malpractice, and then a personal injury attorney would fight for rightful compensation..
Understanding a Birth Injury Case
Birth injuries can happen for a variety of reasons, and not all of those are the doctor’s fault. Although everyone looks for someone to blame, it’s not entirely dependent on the medical team or staff present at the time. Sometimes, injuries just happen.
Birth injuries are among the more common, and what happens is that these injuries often happen because of a lack of oxygen or as a hemorrhage, which is not always preventable.
There are muscle-related and physical injuries such as skull damage, or brachial plexus. Ultimately the question comes down to whether the doctor’s on board and the medical team was appropriately monitoring the baby and mother.
Was the Injury Preventable?
There are a handful of questions that personal injury attorneys use to assess the liability in birth injury claims. Did the medical staff monitor, detect, and treat changes in maternal and fetal health?
Was there a failure to carry out an emergency c-section? Did the medical team fail to diagnose a condition such as a prolapsed umbilical cord? Were birth-assisting tools used incorrectly? The issues that come with child labor are never the same, but these guiding questions can help an attorney, and the hospital staff understands if the birth injury was preventable on any degree.
There are times as well when the injury is identified at birth but refers to issues that developed during the pregnancy. For example, a mother carrying an infection in the vaginal region may impact the baby upon delivery. If the medical team helping during the pregnancy failed to test the mother, then they may be responsible for the medical needs of the baby as a birth injury.
Getting Feedback and Making Claims Against Doctors
Parents find themselves torn after the birth of their child when it comes to injuries. Often they will still work with the same doctors afterward and must interact with nurses and staff who are aware of the situation. How can or should a parent give feedback and make a claim when they still have to work with these doctors?
Reporting the malpractice to the Texas board will only get you so far. The best next step is to contact your medical network and try to get a different medical team while you open a civil case.
Contacting the Right Personal Injury Attorney in Houston for Your Birth Injury Case
You don’t want just any personal injury firm working the case for your newborn and their injury. What you need is someone who is very familiar with birth injuries, medical malpractice, and injuries that can impact a person’s life. With all of these elements in consideration, the victims of a birth injury event should contact a personal injury attorney in Houston at McDonald Worley to open a discussion about possible resolution and case building..
When you contact McDonald Worley, you get to start the process for resolving your entire case. Hopefully, we’ll be working with you and resolve the case quietly through a full and fair settlement. But, in the event that the case needs to go into a courtroom, we’ll be there for you too.