Louisville Birth Injury Attorney

Handling Birth Injury Claims in Louisville & Throughout Kentucky

Birth should be a time for celebration. Unfortunately, labor and delivery result in injuries to either mother or child for far too many families. As a first-world nation, the United States should have low maternal mortality rates. Unfortunately, as a recent report from USA Today showed, the mortality rate in the U.S. is rising. And these statistics do not even include injuries to children.

If you think you or your child has suffered an injury, you should contact an experienced Kentucky birth injury attorney. These are complicated cases, and doctors and hospitals are not eager to admit when they have made mistakes. Our team has the experience and resources necessary to uncover medical negligence and fight to get your family the compensation you need. Contact us today.

Common Birth Injuries To Babies

Many things can go wrong during delivery. For example, the following might ultimately injure your child:

• Delayed C-section
• Improperly performed C-section
• Negligent use of forceps
• Failure to monitor and discover
• Failure to respond properly to fetal distress
• Rough delivery (tugging and pulling)

As a result of the errors made during delivery, children can suffer many problems, such as cerebral palsy, brachial plexus injury, brain damage, and spinal cord injuries.

Even if your baby has been denied oxygen for a brief period of time, doctors can often prevent further damage if they properly diagnose hypoxia and take corrective action. A careless doctor, however, will not notice anything is wrong or not order proper treatment.

Injuries To Mothers

Noakes can handle your birth injury case.

Delivery can be dangerous for mothers as well. High blood pressure and internal bleeding can have fatal consequences if a doctor does not properly follow up with mothers. For example, a mother whose blood pressure is cratering might be bleeding after a vaginal delivery or C-section. A doctor should locate the location of the bleeding and stop it.

Doctors can also fail to properly diagnose problems during pregnancy, such as preeclampsia, which might warrant immediate delivery. Preeclampsia typically begins after the fifth month of pregnancy and can cause death and damage to your baby.

Medical Negligence in Birth Injury Cases

Medical errors during labor and delivery usually stem from negligence. This means the doctor did not follow the appropriate standard of care given the circumstances. Doctors are not expected to be miracle workers, but they are expected to follow the standard of care that other properly trained doctors would have followed. When a doctor is negligent, a patient can sue him or her.

As part of our practice, we have experience building a case for medical negligence against a doctor or hospital. These cases typically require investigative work, which listening to your story of what happened and also reviewing your medical records. We might also interview other members of the delivery team at the hospital.

Key in these cases is retaining a medical expert to review the doctor’s conduct to determine whether it met the standard of care. In some cases, it will be obvious the doctor made a mistake, but in others, only a practitioner in the field can speak authoritatively about what a doctor should have done.

Compensation For Birth Injuries

If we are successful in our case, we can often obtain compensation for our clients. This compensation can take the form of damages for:

• Past, present, and future medical care. If your child has a disability, then ongoing medical care can be expensive.
• Lost wages, if you missed work because of the injuries.
• Pain and suffering. This term includes physical pain and inconvenience caused by the birth injury.

Every case is different, and there is little sense in talking about “average” settlements. Meet with an attorney to review the financial compensation you might receive.