The birth of a child usually gives families a cause to celebrate. But grief can overwhelm joy when hospital negligence causes a mother or baby to suffer devastating birth injuries.
The law firm of Nessler & Associates has extensive experience handling medical malpractice claims. We can help you get the maximum compensation for the injury or wrongful death your family suffered. You need a skilled attorney to help you win your case.
Medical malpractice attorneys understand the nuances of these cases. The most common injuries often result from a substandard level of care and include everything from internal bleeding to cerebral palsy. Hospital negligence can cause damage and encompasses diagnostic, surgical, and medical errors. Contact a personal injury attorney with Nessler & Associates for a free consultation.
Illinois Birth Injury Attorneys at Nessler & Associates
Our birth injury lawyers can help victims of medical negligence get financial compensation for harm caused by medical error. The lawyers with Nessler & Associates can work with medical professionals to examine your records and identify instances of negligence or misconduct.
We can use medical records, receipts, and interviews to calculate a fair recovery for your economic and non-economic damages. These include medical expenses, out-of-pocket expenses such as medication and transportation, and intangible damages such as pain and suffering.
We can also negotiate with the insurance company to get a fair settlement and appear in court if the insurer refuses to settle.
Birth Injuries Arising From Negligence
Common birth injuries from hospital negligence include damage to the baby’s brain, bones, facial nerves, and brachial plexus, a network of nerves in the shoulder. Common maternal injuries include bleeding, blood clots, and organ damage.
Birth Injury vs. Congenital Disability
A birth injury is different from a congenital disability. A congenital disability develops with the baby, while a birth injury results from a traumatic event during the birthing process.
Brachial Plexus Injuries
Brachial plexus injuries, including Erb’s palsy, occur when the nerves in the shoulder are stretched and sometimes torn. Nerve damage can be temporary or permanent, affecting the whole limb, shoulder, and elbow. In some cases, the nerve roots pull free of the spinal cord.
Spinal Cord Injuries
This rare complication can lead to reduced movement and sensation or complete paralysis. In extreme cases, it can cause death. Health care providers can cause a spinal cord injury by applying excessive force with forceps or a vacuum extractor or moving the head the wrong way.
Brain Injuries
Brain injuries during birth usually result from a lack of oxygen. Compression of the umbilical cord in the birth canal, maternal bleeding, and premature separation of the placenta from the uterine wall cause oxygen deprivation. Some cases can result in cerebral palsy.
Maternal Injuries
In 2020, 861 women in the U.S. died due to pregnancy- and delivery-related complications. The three leading causes of maternal mortality, which can happen up to six weeks after delivery, are blood clots in the lungs, high blood pressure, and excessive bleeding.
In one study, the most common medication error was dose omission. For example, this error can cause severe harm if the mother has preeclampsia. Medication errors that involve wrong doses, such as misplacing a decimal, can lead to organ failure.
At Nessler & Associates, we work with medical experts who can help us understand the significance of your family’s injuries. They can also help us prove that a hospital or a health care professional’s negligence caused those injuries by defining the accepted standard of care and showing how your medical team deviated from it.
Hospital Negligence That Injures the Baby or the Mother
The birthing process involves significant risks to both mother and baby. If health care providers fail to deliver the standard of care, several types of injuries can result.
Diagnostic Errors
Diagnostic errors during prenatal care or in the hospital during labor can cause severe delivery complications. Gestational diabetes can result in a very large baby. Mothers with kidney disease suffer higher rates of high blood pressure and need surgical deliveries more often.
Preeclampsia, or high blood pressure, increases the risk of excessive bleeding. Other conditions that might cause hemorrhaging that get overlooked include uterine rupture and premature placental detachment. If the medical team is not carefully watching for fetal distress, the mother and baby can suffer a severe injury during delivery.
Failure to diagnose infectious diseases, such as COVID-19 or influenza, can lead to respiratory distress, blood clots, and other complications during labor. If doctors miss that the baby is too large for a safe vaginal delivery, shoulder dystocia may occur. Shoulder dystocia is when the baby’s shoulder gets caught on the pubic bone, and the baby cannot progress down the birth canal.
Delivery Errors
The delivery process does not always go smoothly. Sometimes medical personnel use forceps or a vacuum extractor to help pull the baby out, especially if the fetal heart rate drops. If they use excessive pressure on these devices, your baby can suffer brachial plexus injuries, spinal cord injuries, or injuries to the facial nerves.
Medication Errors
A typical medical error in hospitals involves skipping a dose of medication, giving the wrong amount, or giving the wrong drug. Each of these errors can cause damage ranging from increased pain to death.
Surgical Errors
Errors made during a cesarean or surgery to address internal bleeding can cause excessive bleeding, damage the intestines, cut the baby, deprive the baby of oxygen, or require a hysterectomy.
Medical negligence often occurs as a result of hospital staff miscommunication. Women who live in rural and medically underserved areas experience higher rates of life-threatening complications during pregnancy and delivery.
Contact the personal injury lawyers with Nessler & Associates to discover how we can help you get financial compensation. We work on a contingency basis so that everyone can access the legal system, regardless of their current financial situation. You need legal and economic support to focus on healing your family.
How a Personal Injury Attorney Can Help
A personal injury attorney with Nessler & Associates can file a wrongful death or medical malpractice lawsuit on your behalf. We can get the required expert affidavit, investigate, calculate damages, and negotiate with the malpractice insurer. We can take your case to trial if negotiations fail to provide fair compensation.
Preliminary Actions
Our legal team understands the different statutes of limitations on medical malpractice cases in Illinois. In most circumstances, you have two years from the date of the injury or the date the damage makes itself known to file a claim. Some legal issues might change the time limits.
Illinois law requires a signed affidavit from a medical professional who works or teaches in the same field, saying that enough evidence exists that the case should proceed. This affidavit must be attached to the paperwork for the claim when it is filed. We work with a variety of medical experts who can fill this role.
Calculate Compensation
The two types of compensatory damages are economic and non-economic. Monetary damages cover the financial costs of the injury, treatment, and recovery, while non-economic damages cover intangible losses.
Items you can expect economic damages to cover include:
- All medical costs related to the injury
- Additional medical care such as physical, occupational, or speech therapy
- Future care
- Caretaker costs if baby or mother needs special care
- Long-term care
- Loss of income while you attend appointments
Non-economic damages could cover:
- Chronic pain
- Future pain
- Physical trauma
- Emotional trauma
- Shortened life expectancy
- The inconvenience of a lifelong disability such as irreversible brain damage
- The emotional pain of dealing with medical issues caused by a permanent injury, such as intellectual disability, permanent brain damage, or permanent nerve damage
- Loss of enjoyment of life or the inability to participate in everyday activities of normal life
Negotiations
We will use all of the information from our investigation to fight aggressively on your behalf. The insurance company’s only goal is to pay as little as possible. Our goal is to get you what you deserve, and our attorneys know all the tricks these companies use to deny payments.
Trial
Most cases are settled out of court, but we can take your lawsuit to trial if the insurance company refuses to pay a reasonable amount. We will hire expert witnesses to help the jury understand what happened to your family and how it could have been prevented.
Get Help From an Experienced Birth Injury Law Firm
Whether your birth injury claim includes cerebral palsy or damage from a medication error, the medical malpractice lawyers with Nessler & Associates have the experience you need to recover the maximum financial compensation.
We have won millions of dollars for our clients through dedication and putting the client’s needs first.
You need help from the financial strain caused by hospital negligence, and we can provide it. Contact us at (800) 727-8010 to schedule a free, confidential consultation. We can examine your case and discuss your legal options.