Very little in life compares to the joy and excitement of welcoming a new baby into the world. But for some families, joy turns to heartbreak when their long-awaited child is born with a disability caused by an injury that occurred during their birth.
Sometimes a child is born with an impairment that no one could have prevented, but other times, the child is a victim of medical malpractice and must start life with an injury that could have been avoided if the doctor, nurse, or other health care professional was not careless or negligent in providing care to the mother or child.
If you or a loved one had a child that suffered suspected birth injuries in Maryland, call the Baltimore birth injury attorneys at Rice Law today for a free case review at (410) 694-7291.
What Constitutes a Birth Injury?
When lawyers discuss “birth injury” cases, we usually mean injuries to the baby. This can come from the doctor’s negligence in planning the delivery (e.g., determining whether it should be a C-section or natural birth) or in executing the delivery (e.g., in deciding to use forceps without a good reason).
Injuries to the mother can also be claimed in a medical malpractice case, but our primary concerns with “birth injuries” are the baby’s well-being and the damages the family faces for their injuries.
Medical Malpractice Lawsuits for Birth Injuries in Maryland
Sometimes a doctor and their team do everything right, and yet the baby is born with some type of health problem or disability. In these cases, the injury might not be the result of medical malpractice. Sometimes injuries and complications happen in medicine, but if there is something that the doctor did wrong or should have done better, it may be considered malpractice.
Negligence Claims
Medical malpractice claims are a type of negligence case. This means showing four elements:
Duty
You must show what the defendant’s duty was to the patient. In a medical malpractice case, this will come from the standard of care, discussed below.
Breach
You must show that the doctor’s care breached the standard of care, discussed in more detail below.
Causation
Then, you have to show that the breach of duty was what actually caused the baby’s injuries. If the injury was impossible to avoid, no matter what the doctor did, then your claim might fail.
In some cases, the issue with causation is linking the harm done to the injuries sustained. For example, we may need to introduce testimony from medical experts linking something like cerebral palsy to low oxygen flow sustained during the delivery.
Damages
You must also prove the value of any damages and show what medical injuries or health conditions the baby suffered. You can also claim damages for your own injuries as part of the same lawsuit by proving the other elements for your injuries, too.
What is Medical Malpractice in a Birth Injury Case?
What constitutes medical malpractice is defined by the “standard of care” in the relevant medical community.
Determining the “Standard of Care”
It is necessary to determine whether the doctor or other healthcare professional delivered a standard of care consistent with that which any reasonably competent professional in Maryland with similar training and experience would have used in the same situation.
This means having other medical experts with similar training and experience testify about what the right thing to do is in that situation.
Proving Malpractice
If they did anything that fell below that standard and caused your child’s injuries, medical malpractice may be involved. For example, doctors are only supposed to use forceps in certain situations, and unnecessary use of forceps could cause injuries that would be the doctor’s fault.
Using Medical Experts in Birth Injury Claims
During a lawsuit for these kinds of injuries, your lawyer can call on a medical expert to testify as to what that standard is and what mistakes your doctor committed.
An expert witness can testify based on their knowledge and experience, and the jury is supposed to take their testimony as fact. Generally, the defendant will also call a medical expert to testify that the injury was not negligent, and the jury will often decide the case based on this battle of the experts.
Common Errors and Mistakes that Cause Birth Injuries
Babies are vulnerable and can face serious injuries in many ways that an adult or even a child would not. The following mistakes are some of the most common issues that injure newborns during delivery:
- Failing to identify a herpes infection or other sexually transmitted disease that could transfer to the baby before proceeding with a vaginal delivery
- Failing to properly monitor the mother and baby during labor
- Allowing labor to continue for too long or inducing labor too quickly
- Failing to identify a compressed or entangled umbilical cord, breech presentation, or situation where the baby is too large for vaginal delivery
- Improper vaginal delivery of a baby with shoulder dystocia
- Failing to perform a timely C-section to deliver a distressed baby
- Failing to put a baby on oxygen when necessary
- Choosing to perform an unnecessary forceps delivery
- Errors in performing a forceps delivery or vacuum extraction
- Failing to diagnose and treat jaundice in the infant
- Failing to diagnose and treat excessive bleeding in the mother
- Dropping or mishandling the newborn
If your doctor or their medical team committed any of these errors without proper justification, their medical care may have fallen below the standard of care. When this happens, you may be entitled to compensation for any harms that you and your baby suffered because of the negligent care, including serious injuries and health effects.
Common Types of Birth Injuries and Congenital Health Problems
Many injuries and health complications common in newborns are caused by medical malpractice. Sometimes these complications occur even with perfect, by-the-book care, but many of these injuries could be the result of serious negligence during the delivery.
- Cerebral palsy (a permanent neurological movement disorder)
- Erb’s palsy (brachial plexus palsy) causes arm and neck weakness or paralysis
- Infant Bell’s palsy causing facial paralysis
- Other types of nerve damage
- Brain damage from untreated jaundice (kernicterus)
- Cephalohematoma (collection of blood beneath the skull)
- Broken bones and joint dislocations
- Bacterial, viral, or parasitic infections
- Blindness and severe visual impairment (SVI) from lack of oxygen or infection
- Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (brain injuries from lack of oxygen)
- Strangulation from a nuchal cord (umbilical cord wrapped around the neck)
- Bruising
- Lacerations
- Cracked or crushed skull, or other skull deformations
- Traumatic brain injuries
In many cases, these injuries are only caused by negligence in the delivery room. Your attorney can help you examine your case and determine whether you have a birth injury case.
Building and Filing a Birth Injury Case in Baltimore, MD
To give your case the best chances of success, follow these steps
Calling a Lawyer
The first step in getting help for your child is a free case review with an attorney. At Rice Law, we can go over your case and help you determine whom to sue and what your claim might be worth.
Obtaining Medical Records
It is extremely helpful to bring in your baby’s medical records if you are able to get them. If you are having trouble obtaining records, we can help.
Case Review with Experts
We will take a preliminary look at the available information to determine if there might be proof of malpractice or medical mistakes. We will later confer with a medical expert to confirm what mistakes were made. If it appears that you have a case, we will let you know, and we can discuss how your claim will progress from there.
We will call upon experts to do a thorough analysis of the records and render a professional opinion as to how the doctor’s care was negligent and determine what parties were involved in the errors.
Interviewing Witnesses
We will attempt to interview any witnesses to the event along with others who have treated the child since the injury occurred. Their testimony provides excellent evidence of how the injuries occurred and what went wrong.
Analyzing Damages
We will determine the potential consequences your child and your family faced. This often includes looking at the projected future costs of medical treatment, therapy, and related expenses, as well as determining the suffering and limitations the child will endure because of their birth injuries.
We can also project how these damages will affect their future wages when they grow up and what damages they may deserve for physical pain and mental/emotional suffering. We will put these damages into a demand for compensation from the doctor or hospital’s medical malpractice insurance company.
Attempts to Settle
We will make every effort to settle the case out of court quickly, but we will not accept less than you and your child deserve. Many settlement offers from doctors and their medical malpractice insurance are too low to cover your needs.
Filing Formal Lawsuit
If we need to, we will file your claim in court and fight your case at trial to get you the maximum compensation you deserve to help pay for current and future care needs for your child.
Doctors and their medical malpractice insurance companies may try to tell you that you do not have a case, or they may tell you that your claim is worth far less than it is. Never accept any money for your claim without speaking to an experienced birth injury attorney first.
Trial
If it comes to it that we cannot settle the case for a fair value, we can fight the case at trial. There, we will present the evidence and witnesses we have, including our medical experts, to show the jury that what happened to your child involved mistakes and malpractice.
The jury decides the case in a trial.
Damages in a Birth Injury Case
In a birth injury case, the baby and the whole family face a range of damages you can seek compensation for:
Further Medical Care Costs
When a baby is injured during delivery, they often need to spend time in the NICU or time receiving additional treatments and medical care to reverse the effects of the injury – to the extent possible.
With some injuries, lifelong conditions/disabilities develop, requiring ongoing care for years to come. This could include physical therapy and occupational therapy, along with crutches and wheelchairs for conditions like cerebral palsy.
All medical care costs caused by the malpractice should be covered.
Lost Future Wages
Your child may also face lost wages in the future because of the disabilities they faced from birth. This can be complicated to prove, but our birth injury lawyers will assess the options and evidence available in your case to include these costs.
Pain and Suffering
Similarly, there are intangible harms your child will face growing up with the effects of a birth injury. Things like embarrassment, lost enjoyment, and difficulty with daily activities can be accounted for under “pain and suffering” or “non-economic” damages.
These damages are capped in Maryland at $920,000 for medical malpractice claims, as of January 1, 2026. This cap goes up by $15,000 annually on January 1.
How Long Do You Have to Sue for Birth Injuries in Baltimore?
Maryland law typically gives you 3 years to sue from the date you know about an injury to file a lawsuit. If there is a delay in your ability to discover the injury, this can be extended up to 5 years, but you cannot sue after 5 years.
Reasons for this kind of delay might include the doctors lying to you about the injuries or cause, and it might not be until you have your baby see another doctor that you understand your obstetrician’s mistakes.
When Should You Contact a Lawyer?
Contact a lawyer as soon as you can about any suspected or potential birth injuries. If you wait too long, it could limit your ability to obtain evidence or file a lawsuit.
What Are the Signs to Look for with Birth Injuries?
Many birth injuries are obvious, or the doctor will admit that the injury actually occurred, even if they try to dodge responsibility for it. If this is the case, do not delay in calling a lawyer and collecting as much evidence as you can.
Other signs might be harder to tell apart from delayed development or other injuries/conditions that the doctors did not cause. In any case, look for symptoms like these and bring them up to your pediatrician and your lawyer right away:
- Delayed development
- Unresponsiveness
- Extreme weakness in an arm or leg
- Awkward positioning of the arm or shoulder, often with the baby’s head cocked to the side
- Signs of physical trauma.
Do Vaccines Cause Birth Injuries?
Birth injuries only include injuries that happen during pregnancy or delivery, or in the time immediately after delivery (e.g., dropping a baby). These are the doctor’s fault or the medical team’s fault.
Vaccines are not given until later, and potential complications do not fall under the category of “birth injuries.”
Our Baltimore Birth Injury Lawyers Can Help Fight for a Better Life for Your Child
Call Rice Law’s birth injury attorneys at (410) 694-7291 for a free case evaluation.