The birth of a child is supposed to be a joyous event. In most circumstances, it will be for both parents as they welcome their newborn baby into the world. However, this moment can be tarnished if the baby is injured because of someone else’s negligence. In that moment, you may feel grief, anger, pain, and many other emotions. Moreover, the newborn will have to deal with those injuries, potentially for the rest of their life.
The party that pays for your damages after a child’s birth injury will be the one that negligently caused the injury. This could include doctors, hospitals, and medical malpractice insurance policies. Depending on the specifics of your situation and the hospital or medical practitioner that injured you, different parties could be liable for your damages.
To get started on your case with a free case review, call Rice, Murtha & Psoras’s Maryland medical malpractice lawyers at (410) 694-7291.
Who Will Pay for Your Child’s Injuries after a Birth Injury
There could be multiple parties at fault for your child’s injuries during birth. Depending on who was negligent at what point in the process, various hospital-related entities will be liable for your damages. Our Hagerstown, MD medical malpractice lawyers can investigate your case and figure out who you should take to court.
Doctors
If a doctor was negligent when working on your child’s delivery, you can hold them liable for injuries to you and your child. The cornerstone of medical malpractice lawsuits is alleging that a medical professional was negligent and their negligence caused injuries. Examples of conduct that can cause a birth injury would include failure to notice certain conditions in the birth parent that would warrant certain care, improper use of tools like forceps or vacuum suction birth-assisting devices, or ignoring a patient’s concerns.
Other Medical Staff
Just like with doctors, other medical personnel like nurses and specialized technicians can be liable for your child’s injuries. Often, many of the individual tasks involved with childbirth are assigned to specialists rather than carried out by one doctor. Nurses and other medical assistants administer medication and do other procedures so that the doctor can focus on directing things. If one of these medical professionals makes a mistake, it could lead to injury.
Non-Medical Staff
There is an off chance that a non-medical hospital employee could injure your child during or right after childbirth. A lot of hospitals use orderlies or other non-medical staff – or even volunteers – to move babies to the nursery, sit with crying babies, or to do things like clean rooms and hallways. If one of them was responsible for the injury, they may be liable as well as the hospital they work for.
Malpractice Insurance
Generally, hospitals and doctors will have medical malpractice insurance to cover instances when their doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals cause injuries. Although the malpractice insurance carrier will not be literally responsible for the injuries, they will be the one to pay for the damages under the terms of the policy the negligent doctor or hospital has. In many cases, you can file your claim with them. Alternatively, if you sue the doctor/hospital, the malpractice insurance carrier will usually be the one to supply a lawyer for the doctor and payment for any damages.
Things You Can Get Compensation for After a Child’s Birth Injury
When you are filing a medical malpractice lawsuit for an injury to your child during childbirth, you need to know what damages you can ask for. Broadly speaking, damages are divided into economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages are things that will have physical representations of their monetary value, while non-economic damages will be more abstract.
Medical Treatment
Probably the most obvious item that you can get compensation for after your child is injured during birth is financial compensation for medical treatment. Injuries to a child during birth require immediate, skilled medical care to try and mitigate injuries. This care, even if successful, can be very expensive. Accordingly, you can get compensation for medical care your child needs during and after birth in a medical malpractice lawsuit.
You may also be able to get compensation for “maternal injuries” – injuries that you sustain during childbirth – in the same lawsuit.
Therapy
Even giving birth to a child that goes off without issues can be traumatic for the birth parent. Although the event itself is a cause for happiness, it is not unusual for the birth parent to have melancholic or sad feelings afterward. When a birth does not go seamlessly, and the child is injured, the experience is all the more difficult to go through.
If you need counseling, therapy, or similar treatment after your child is injured during birth, you can request compensation for those costs in your lawsuit.
Lost Quality of Life
You can get damages based on lost quality of life for your child. For example, if a medical professional negligently injured your child during birth and it resulted in a condition like cerebral palsy, you can file a medical malpractice claim based on damage to the child’s quality of life. Similarly, if the injury results in a malformed part of the child’s body or other physical ailment, you can sue for that injury.
Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering refers to the mental distress and anguish you and your child suffer due to a medical professional’s negligence. This can be hard to quantify financially, so you will need to sit down with our lawyers and calculate how much this is worth when you plan out our medical malpractice lawsuit.
Call Our Medical Malpractice Lawyers Today
Rice, Murtha & Psoras’s Baltimore medical malpractice lawyers can be called at (410) 694-7291 for free case reviews.