Children most often endure birth injuries when a medical professional uses forceps or abnormal force to remove a child from their mother. These birth injuries due to medical malpractice can result in life-long facial paralysis, fractures, weakness, or similar conditions.
Should your child develop a birth injury due to a medical professional’s lack of care, you may be entitled to financial support. 1Law is ready to help. You can connect with our birth injury lawyers in West Valley City, UT, to discuss how to secure compensation for your child’s losses as well as your own.
Giving birth is rarely a straightforward process. The quirks of a parent’s body, combined with the unpredictability of an unborn child’s size and positioning, can all force medical professionals to make questionable decisions during labor. Unfortunately, these decisions can see professionals become negligent or reckless with their patient’s health.
Professional negligence during birth often sees medical professionals:
Should you find that your child endured an injury during the birthing process, a legal professional can help you assess your circumstances for evidence of negligence.
If you’re able to bring that evidence forward, you can assign liability for your losses. In turn, you can request that a practitioner’s institution financially support your child’s recovery. You can also request compensation for shared economic and non-economic losses.
The term “birth injuries” addresses more than one kind of condition. Some of the most common birth injuries related to negligence or malpractice can include:
If you believe your child has any of these conditions, seek out medical treatment as soon as you can. The severity of your child’s condition may vary depending on the nature of the negligence you endured during the birthing process.
As you seek out treatment, make sure that you keep track of medical professionals’ statements regarding your child’s well-being. A West Valley City, UT, birth injury attorney could summon these parties as expert witnesses should you want to take your case to trial.
It can feel like a single person is responsible for your child’s birth injuries. While this may technically be the case, it’s difficult to hold a single professional liable for birth injuries in a court of law. Instead, the team that helped with your labor is likely protected by their employer.
This is why most birth injury complaints name an entire medical institution liable for a child’s losses. Medical institutions tend to have insurance that they extend to your staff, subsequently guarding those team members from the financial consequences of a birth injury suit.
That said, medical institutions also tend to have experienced legal teams on call. If you name an institution as liable for your losses in a birth injury complaint, be prepared to communicate with that team. Our team can stand beside you and ensure that you and your concerns are treated with the utmost respect.
Unfortunately, you have a limited amount of time to gather evidence of medical negligence after your child’s birth. Utah Code Ann. § 78B-3-404 allows parents or other applicable representatives to take two years to bring their cases together. If you want to pursue compensation for your losses, you must file your case within this deadline.
Failure to file a birth injury claim within two years of a child’s birth can allow Utah courts to deny you your right to compensation. With that in mind, bring your case to our attorneys as soon as you suspect there may be negligence in play. West Valley City birth injury lawyers can work to facilitate your recovery while building your case.
When you file your birth injury claim, you can use your available receipts and bills to detail the economic extent of your child’s losses. In turn, you can request that the party named liable for your child’s losses pay for your:
With these losses spelled out, you can further press for non-economic damages. To calculate the value of conditions like emotional distress or pain and suffering, we can apply a multiplier to your case. Should you win your case, you can subsequently receive additional compensation for the stress you endured.
So long as you are a legal parent or guardian of the child in question, you can pursue a birth injury claim on your and their behalf. A West Valley City birth injury lawyer can help you determine your case’s eligibility based on the severity of your child’s injury as well as the circumstances that led to your losses.
Throughout this process, you can continue to pursue the care that your child needs to live a healthy, pain-free life. As mentioned, you can integrate the cost of your child’s injury-related care into your request for compensation. This way, you can help your child recover from someone else’s negligence without stressing out over the price of treatment.
Giving birth means leaving your own health and the health of your child in someone else’s hands. If your child suffers a birth injury as a result of a professional’s negligence – or if you do – the following days are about more than recovering from labor. You or someone you love can work with our team at 1Law to bring that negligence to court.
Our birth injury attorneys in West Valley City, UT, can work with you to build a case against a medical institution. We can fight to bring evidence of medical neglect to court, thereby advocating for your and your child’s right to comprehensive recovery. You can access our free legal chat or contact us to learn more about your legal options.