Bringing a new child into the world is a wonderful experience. Many parents reflect back and say that the births of their children were the best day of their lives. When something goes wrong during childbirth, suddenly that “best day ever” can be the exact opposite. Suddenly, your child is injured due to medical error and you and your child may be faced with lifelong consequences. As the leading Chicago Personal Injury Attorney, I’d like to give you a few things to consider if you ever find yourself in this precarious position.
First, not all birth injuries occur because of some medical professional’s negligence or careless behavior. Sometimes the medical professionals do everything within the standard of care that applies to them and the baby is nevertheless injured. However, many injuries at birth occur because of medical negligence, often referred to as medical malpractice. Sometimes it’s obvious that the child is injured as the child may be placed in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) right away or in many circumstances, it may take months or even years for the parents or the child’s doctor to figure out that something just isn’t right.
You might think that it just doesn’t seem right to contact a birth injury lawyer if your child was hurt because of possible medical mistakes or maybe you just want to wait for a better time to start contacting a birth injury lawyer. Obviously, having an injured child can be quite overwhelming. However, waiting to call a birth injury lawyer could have harsh consequences on a potential legal case. There are strict deadlines in Illinois and other states on how long you have to file a lawsuit before you no longer have that right. Additionally, it’s likely that the medical institution where your child was born isn’t waiting to start an investigation. The same goes for the doctors, the nurses and their insurance companies. It is quite likely that the hospital, the doctors, the nurses, and the insurance companies will take steps to protect their interests. The stakes are high in birth injury cases and they know it.
There are many types of birth injury cases. Some involve C-Section mistakes, errors in inducing labor, not identifying fetal distress or fetal risk factors, hypoxia, just to name a few. An experienced birth injury lawyer can explore, with medical experts, what may have gone wrong during birth to cause a birth injury. At a minimum, a birth injury lawyer should be able to explain your legal options, if any, after a birth injury. Then, it would be up to you to determine what the best course is for you and your family.
Birth injury cases are generally complicated and almost always expensive. It’s not uncommon for a birth injury lawyer to need several experts to help prove negligence in a birth injury case. Most lawyers who handle birth injury cases will cover the costs associated with investigating and prosecuting a birth injury case. The stakes are high as birth injury lawyers know that the outcome will affect an injured child for the rest of his or her life. A law firm may incur hundreds of thousands of dollars to litigate a medical malpractice case involving birth injuries. It is imperative that a birth injury lawyer perform an intense legal and economic analysis in every birth injury case. If you have any questions or simply want to explore your options please contact Willens Law Offices at (312) 957-4166 today.
