Media Birth Injury Attorney

While we expect medical professionals to uphold a certain standard of care during the childbirth process, some Media, PA healthcare workers commit serious acts of negligence. From improper fetal monitoring to failing to diagnose a mother with common prenatal conditions before labor, these actions can lead to serious birth injuries and complications.

If your child sustained an injury during childbirth, you may qualify for financial compensation through a lawsuit in Pennsylvania civil court. The Media birth injury attorneys at Rosenbaum & Associates can represent your claim, leveraging our 25 years of personal injury experience to maximize your child’s recovery. Contact our firm for a free consultation to discuss the specifics of your case.

Why Choose Us

Our Media personal injury attorneys partner with leading expert witnesses who can provide testimony on your child’s behalf, including medical doctors who can validate your child’s injuries.
Our firm provides personalized attention to each and every client. We will always answer your questions, update you on your case status, and let you know how to best prepare.
We understand how financially difficult a birth injury can be. That’s why we operate on a contingency fee basis — you do not pay legal fees unless we secure a settlement in your case.

How Can a Birth Injury Attorney Help?

Hiring the right lawyer for a birth injury case can make a critical difference in ensuring you recover the compensation your family needs. Birth injury lawsuits involve a large number of complex legal issues related to insurance, evidentiary standards, the statute of limitations (deadline for filing a lawsuit), and the hiring of medical experts. It can also be frightening to go up against a medical provider, who will often have a team of attorneys ready to deny or devalue your claim. An attorney will have extensive knowledge regarding the unique issues related to these cases and will fight on your behalf to obtain justice

After a birth injury event, the hospital or birthing center may send an insurance representative to speak to you. They may attempt to have you sign a release of liability form and/or offer you a settlement much lower than your case’s actual value. Without the professional advice of a birth injury lawyer, you may end up with less compensation than you need to meet your family’s financial needs—especially if the injury requires a lifetime of medical care. An attorney will have the resources to build a solid case on your behalf, and all of your legal needs will be taken care of while you focus on recovery.

Common Types of Birth Injuries

Many acts of medical negligence can occur throughout pregnancy, resulting in harm to the mother and fetus alike. These injuries can have lifelong impacts, requiring ongoing medical care, disability accommodations, special therapies, and other expensive treatment options.

Common birth injuries include the following.

Cerebral palsy
Brachial plexus injury, or Erb’s palsy
Brain asphyxia
Facial nerve damage
Skull fractures
Permanent paralysis
Intellectual disabilities
Asphyxia and hypoxia
Prenatal infections

Who Can Be Held Responsible For a Birth Injury in Pennsylvania?

If you discover that you or your child is a birth injury victim, the next step is determining who can be held legally responsible. Depending on the circumstances of the injury, several parties may be accountable, including:

Obstetricians
Midwife
Nurses
Doctors
Hospital or birthing center (e.g., hiring ill-qualified physicians, improper equipment sterilization, other similar mistakes, or can be held vicariously liable for medical negligence committed by staff members)
Any other healthcare providers involved in caring for you or your baby.

Doctors and Birth Injuries

There are key aspects of pregnancy, labor, and delivery that, when carefully monitored, can help prevent birth injuries. Doctors who fail to perform their duties or make bad judgment calls can face severe repercussions for their negligent actions. Some examples of medical negligence during childbirth are:

Failing to monitor a baby’s oxygen during labor and delivery, resulting in brain damage.
Misusing a medical instrument and causing the baby to suffer a skull fracture.
Failing to detect or adequately treat a maternal infection, leading to brain trauma and other complications for the baby.
Medical equipment or supplies left inside a mother after a cesarean section (C-section).
Damaging a mother’s internal organs during a C-section.
Failing to detect congenital disabilities or impairments.

While providing prenatal care, obstetricians and gynecologists must identify any issues that may put the expectant mother or baby at risk.

Nurses and Birth Injuries

Not all of the medical staff in a delivery room will be doctors. Staff members such as nurses also play a crucial role in monitoring maternal and fetal health and delivering the baby safely. Any instances of negligence on the part of nurses also increase the risk of birth injury. Errors such as a failure to monitor or incorrectly administering medications can jeopardize mother and baby, potentially creating complications that can lead to lifelong issues.

How Do You Prove Negligence In a Birth Injury?

To prove a claim of medical negligence for a birth injury requires establishing the following four elements:

Duty of Care: The healthcare provider owed you or your baby a duty of care. This duty can be proven with medical records that show you had a provider-patient relationship with the doctor, nurse, hospital, etc., that you are suing.
Breach of Duty: The medical provider violated their duty (committed medical negligence) by failing to provide the standard of care expected of them. This element is typically the most highly contested issue in a birth injury case. Testimony from an expert medical witness will be required to demonstrate the standard of care applicable in your case. You must be able to prove that another healthcare provider with similar qualifications, training, and experience would not have acted or failed to act in a similar manner under the same circumstances. As a result, your provider deviated from the acceptable standard of care.
Causation: You or your baby’s birth injury is directly linked to the healthcare provider’s negligence.
Damages: As a result of the medical provider’s negligence, you suffered losses (e.g., medical bills, lost wages, diminished earning capacity, pain and suffering, emotional distress, etc.).

One of the most complicated aspects of a birth injury claim is gathering enough critical evidence to prove a medical provider’s negligence is responsible.

Child’s Medical Records

The medical records for mom and baby must be thoroughly analyzed, correctly interpreted, and understood. They will contain complex medical information that will be vital to proving that the expected medical standard of care was deviated from, which caused the birth injury.

Statements from Birth Injury Specialists

If warranted, your attorney will enlist experts to identify errors and determine if those errors are linked to your child’s birth injury. These cases often heavily rely on expert witness testimony to also define the minimum acceptable standard of care.

Common Types of Medical Negligence that Leads to Birth Injuries

Types of medical negligence that commonly cause preventable birth injuries include:

Failure to provide adequate prenatal care, including diagnosing and treating maternal conditions
Failure to monitor vital signs during labor and delivery
Failure to diagnose and treat infections during pregnancy or labor
Mismanagement of standard delivery procedure and lack of labor preparedness
Failure to detect and address problems with the umbilical cord
Failure to respond to cardiac complications during birth
Misuse of birth-assisting tools, such as forceps and vacuum extractors
Failure to perform or unnecessarily delaying a medically advisable emergency cesarean section
Failure to treat the newborn’s, such as meconium aspiration syndrome, infant respiratory distress syndrome, or jaundice
Failure to address and correct adverse effects from surgery or drugs, including complications from anesthesia and epidural toxicity

Parents are often misled to believe that a preventable mistake resulting in a birth injury was unavoidable. However, even when a patient is at a high risk of experiencing complications, the doctors and nurses who treat her or the baby should have sufficient training to ensure a healthy delivery.

Compensation for Media, PA Birth Injuries

In your birth injury lawsuit, you have the right to claim compensation for any physical, emotional, or financial harm your family suffered due to your child’s birth injury. The bulk of your settlement will likely go to your child’s ongoing medical care; the Media birth injury attorneys at Rosenbaum & Associates will connect you with healthcare and economics experts who can create a long-term care plan to calculate your child’s future expenses.

You can also receive compensation for the following damages related to your child’s injuries.

Transportation to and from medical appointments
Live-in caregivers
Disability accommodations to your home and vehicle
Physical and emotional pain and suffering
Loss of lifetime earning capacity

How Long Do You Have to File a Birth Injury Lawsuit?

All civil lawsuits in Pennsylvania are subject to statutes of limitations, which are deadlines you must file your claim by. If you file your lawsuit after this period ends, the court will dismiss your claim. In most cases, you have two years from the date of your child’s birth injury to file.

If you did not discover your child’s condition until a later date, you will file your claim on the date you discovered the birth injury. However, Pennsylvania does not allow you to file a medical malpractice claim more than seven years after the original medical error occurred.

Contact Our Law Firm Today

If your child suffered a birth injury due to a medical professional’s negligence, Rosenbaum & Associates can help. Our attorneys have a wide network of resources we can utilize to investigate your child’s injuries, validate your claim, and prove your need for compensation. We also partner with economic experts who can calculate your child’s long-term care costs.

Contact Rosenbaum & Associates today to schedule your free consultation. Our Media birth injury lawyers in PA are happy to answer any questions you may have and inform you of your best legal options.