Medical malpractice cases grow steadily in the United States based on better education and recognition of medical liability in cases formerly considered acts of fate. According to a post at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, medical malpractice insurance premiums now total more than $5 billion each year. That’s in addition to the billions of dollars in legal fees, settlements, and court-ordered awards.
Birth Injury Statistics
According to information provided by the CDC, there are 541.9 infant deaths per 100,000 births in the United States. In addition, many other injury cases range from fast recovery times to lifelong disabilities. For example, about 8.2% of births are infants with low birth weights under 5.5 pounds, and 10.9% are preterm at less than 37 weeks. These cases alone cause many birth issues.
While not all birth injuries are preventable, many of them occur due to the negligence of healthcare providers, according to a birth injury lawyer from Brown & Barron LLC. When a newborn or a mother has suffered an avoidable birth injury, a medical malpractice claim or lawsuit often follows.
Ways Hiring a Birth Lawyer Can Help
Obviously, medical malpractice cases generate big damages, and no cases are more tragic than birth injuries. Hiring an attorney isn’t a luxury but a necessity because of the high costs of treatment and life-long care. Parents need to consider specialized medical interventions and therapies, special needs pediatric care, special education programs, and much, much more.
Ironically, those high prices are partly caused by medical malpractice insurance premiums. So don’t expect the kindly neighborhood physician to easily cough up compensation for birth injuries. That’s why you should hire an experienced birth injury attorney for the following advantages in court.
1. Birth Injury Lawyers Specialize in the Most Complicated Cases
Traumatic brain injuries and cerebral palsy often generate lifelong disabilities and expenses. You need an experienced expert lawyer with a crack investigating team to determine what’s medically acceptable and what isn’t.
The lawyer can hire expert medical witnesses to refute the defendant’s version of the events. Strong knowledge of birth injuries like cerebral palsy, birth asphyxia, Erb’s palsy, intrauterine fetal demise, spinal cord injuries, brain damage, and severe jaundice provides a big advantage in court.
2. Knowledge of Medical Procedures and Terminology
Lawyers with a strong medical background understand the improper use of delivery aids like forceps, vacuum extractors, and instruments for performing C-sections. That ensures an accurate diagnosis of medical negligence for using unnecessary force or taking risks that aren’t standard medical procedures.
3. Building Your Case
Your lawyer gathers medical facts, facts about your personal health history, and any history of negligent behavior on the part of hospital staff. The negligence claim can also include the facility, which might have a history of shortcuts, especially for patients with lower socioeconomic profiles.
4. Understanding When Human Error Occurs
Lawyers pay particular attention to the doctors and nurses involved in your case. They can identify overworked staff members and point out when human error seems the most likely explanation for the birth injury. Moreover, staff must constantly monitor electronic fetal activity, which is often overlooked during difficult labor.
5. Collecting Evidence
Making a jury understand complex medical terms presents some difficulties, but experienced birth injury lawyers know how to prove a complex case. The legal team collects evidence that includes medical histories, documents, the testimony of expert witnesses, and medical records. It’s important to build an airtight case because opposing counsel will do an excellent job of introducing doubts.
6. Making a Case for Financial Compensation
Birth injury lawyers are especially skillful at advocating for financial compensation. The monetary awards vary according to the severity of the birth injury. Skilled lawyers explain that the prospect of ongoing medical bills, compensation for lost work time, rehabilitation expenses, and money for altering the living and play environment of injured infants are important to consider. Birth injury attorneys are experts at considering every expense to get the compensation you deserve.
Bottom Line
Hiring an experienced birth injury lawyer is your best option after discovering your child sustained a birth injury. Fast treatment usually cuts down on recovery time, and you shouldn’t have to worry about your ability to pay for medical treatment or offering your child a healthy, fulfilling, normal life.
About the author:
As a journalist, Leland Bengtson dedicated most of his career to law reporting. His greatest satisfaction is to convey legal matters to the public in a language that they can understand. He is active on various platforms and media outlets, writing about common legal issues that people confront with every day. While medical malpractice is his strong suit, Leland covers plenty of other topics, including personal injury cases, family law, and other civil and even criminal legal matters.
