Towson Birth Injury Lawyer

Doctors and nurses should take extra care to ensure that both mothers and their babies are monitored correctly during the pregnancy. They should also ensure that they take the appropriate measures during the birth to reduce the risk of birth injuries that could effect the newborn baby.

While childbirth is never risk-free, doctors, nurses, and other medical providers should be well trained and competent. They should adhere to the standard medical practices they have been taught to adhere to. If they decide to deviate from these standard practices or they act without due care and attention, this is medical malpractice.

If during your pregnancy, your doctors failed to correctly monitor you and your unborn baby, or you have suffered an injury that could have been preventable during the birth, you are entitled to pursue the recovery of your damages, and you should be compensated for the pain and suffering you and your baby have been through.

At Peter Angelos Law, an experienced birth injury attorney is standing by, ready to evaluate your case and answer your questions. We are compassionate to the needs of our clients, and we understand firsthand how traumatic it can be when your baby is injured during pregnancy or birth. Often these injuries can require long-term treatment and may have an effect on the quality of life your child experiences.

Our main goal is to provide high-quality representation to those who need it most. We want all victims to have access to our services, regardless of whether they have the financial means to pay our fees. To offer this, we work on a contingency fee basis, which is a fee structure often called no-win-no-fee. This allows us to begin working for you without any upfront costs. We only take our payment from a winning settlement. If we lose your case, you do not have to pay anything.

We also offer a free consultation and case evaluation to our new clients. This allows you to ask important questions, get a feel for our attorneys, and receive some free unbiased legal advise. If you want to walk away at this point, you are welcome to do so, and we will be happy that we at least left you more informed than when you walked in.

If you feel confident in our abilities and want to proceed, we will waste no time. We will begin advocating on your behalf and investigating immediately.

Peter Angelos Law - Fierce Advocacy - When You Need It Most

When you obtain representation from Peter Angelos Law, you can do so in confidence, knowing you are hiring a personal injury lawyer from a law firm that has been serving the state since 1961.

We take the time to prioritize our client's needs, making sure we craft a trusting and comfortable attorney-client relationship. This means making sure our clients are educated and kept informed throughout the entire process.

Each attorney on our team is an aggressive and competent trial lawyer and is equally skilled in the negotiation and settlement stages.

Secure legal representation today by calling us at 410-705-2405.

Common Birth Injuries Causes

Preventable birth injuries can cause newborn babies to need medical care for the rest of their lives. Certain injuries may need lifelong treatment, and others may lead to permanent disabilities or impairments.

Most of these injuries fall into two categories:

Prenatal Error

Injuries and conditions caused by prenatal error happen when the medical providers responsible for looking after the child during the pregnancy fail to monitor or diagnose conditions on time. This often occurs through a lack of due care and attention.

If conditions are not diagnosed on time, treatment might be delayed, becoming less effective. If conditions are not diagnosed at all, or there is an incorrect diagnosis, the child might get the wrong treatment or no treatment at all. All of these are preventable under the correct monitoring and competent staff.

Labor and Delivery Error

The next type of injury happens during the birth. When medical providers act without due care or attention during labor or delivery, they can cause serious injury to both the mother and/or the newborn baby.

Some of the more common causes of birth injuries that we deal with are:

Head Trauma During Delivery

Medical providers need to take extra care with the newborn baby's head during the birth as there is a serious risk of brain damage or damage to the baby's central nervous system from trauma. If a newborn baby suffers brain or nerve damage during birth, it can affect their cognitive development and cause impairments to physical abilities.

Neglecting to Perform Specialized Tests

Throughout the pregnancy, your medical provider should conduct adequate levels of monitoring and should perform all the usual specialized tests. This should allow them to detect and diagnose any problems in a timely manner, preventing complications.

Delayed Delivery

When the newborn baby is being delivered, it is important that any potential complications are dealt with immediately. If they are left without being corrected, the results can be extremely serious. Certain complications, if left unchecked, could result in life-changing injury or even the wrongful death of the child.

The most common complications are:

- Cerebral Palsy

- Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy

- Macrosomia.

- Cephalopelvic disproportion.

- Breech.

- Maternal illness.

Delay in Converting the Mother to Caesarian Section

Doctors must convert the mother to a c-section in a timely manner when problems arise that indicate this is the right decision, such as when the child is in fetal distress, or there is a drop in heartbeat.

The attending medical providers must monitor both the child and the mother for signs of distress to allow them adequate time to convert to a c-section if a problem arises.

Negligent Vacuum Use

If a mother is struggling to deliver their baby during the birth, the attending medical providers might decide that a vacuum needs to be used to guide the child through the birth canal. This is not a decision that should be made lightly, as the vacuum can cause serious injuries if used incorrectly.

Forced Delivery

If the delivery of the newborn baby is difficult or is taking a long time, the stress on the mother and newborn baby can be enormous. If this effort is more than the mother can physically handle, doctors may need to intervene.

Forced delivery comes with a variety of risks and should only be done if there is a clear reason to as there is a risk of brachial injuries, erbs palsy, cerebral palsy, or other trauma.

Oxygen Deprivation

One of the more common birth injuries occurs when the baby suffers from a lack of oxygen during the pregnancy or birth. Without enough oxygen, brain tissue begins to die off. When this happens, it is called Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy or HIE for short.

When babies suffer from HIE, it usually means that they need to be delivered immediately or they risk suffering from permanent brain damage.

There are a number of different health conditions that can occur in the womb, too, that lead to HIE. This is one of the reasons why fetal monitoring is so important. Correct monitoring allows for conditions to be diagnosed quickly and immediately treated so that the baby does not suffer from long-term brain damage.

If your baby has suffered from injuries caused by HIE and you feel your medical provider was negligent in their monitoring, this is medical malpractice, and you should speak to a Towson birth injury lawyer immediately.

Types of Birth Injuries

Shockingly, the United States is one of the only developed countries in the world where birth injuries are actually on the rise. Each year there are around 28,000 birth injuries that are caused due to medical malpractice.

Common injuries our birth injury attorneys deal with include:

Brachial Plexus Injury

Brachial plexus injuries occur when the upper nerves in the newborn baby's arm are damaged. This can lead to a lack of function in the arm or even total paralyzation of the arm. This occurs most often when a baby's neck has been pulled to one side with too much force during the birth.

It can also occur when the attending medical providers do not take enough care during assisted or forced delivery.

Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy occurs when a baby suffers from either oxygen deprivation, premature birth, or trauma during birth. Cerebral Palsy is non-progressive, meaning it will not usually develop in severity after birth.

It can cause physical ailments and/or cognitive impairment. The severity of this depends upon the level of oxygen deprivation or trauma suffered.

Symptoms can include:

- Shaking.

- Involuntary movements.

- Delays reaching milestones such as motor skill milestones.

- Poor muscle coordination.

- Weakness in one leg or arm.

- 'Scissored' gait.

- Stiff or tight muscles.

Spina Bifida

The tissue between the brain and spinal cord has to seal properly before birth. Spina Bifida occurs when this tissue fails to seal correctly in time. Spinal tissue does not repair in the same way that other tissue in the body does, and while surgery can be carried out to ensure the condition does not worsen, the child will never recover function in that part of the spinal cord that was damaged.

Spina bifida should be detected and diagnosed during pregnancy. Tests can include ultrasound monitoring, blood tests, or an examination of the fluids that surround the fetus. If your medical provider fails to diagnose the condition or they fail to inform the parents properly, you may be entitled to hold them liable for medical malpractice.

The severity of spina bifida varies depending upon how serious the spinal injury is and the location of the injury. The symptoms are usually worse the higher up the spine the lesion is found.

Symptoms include:

- Bladder or bowel problems.

- Scoliosis.

- Difficulty with planning, organizing, or solving problems.

- Atypical eye movement.

- Difficulty paying attention.

- Hip injuries.

- Club foot.

- Weakness or paralysis of the legs.

Facial Paralysis

If there is too much force and pressure applied to a baby's face during the birth, it can cause nerve damage and facial paralysis. This often occurs when doctors intervene and use forced delivery methods, including the use of vacuums and forceps.

For newborn infants, this damage may lead to the inability of the brain to send signals to parts of the face. This might exhibit itself in a lack of movement on one side of the face or being unable to close one eye. While symptoms often clear up within a few days, more serious cases may be permanent.

As part of the duty of care that all medical providers owe to their patients, it is their duty to keep your child safe from harm. If your baby has been injured, and you feel the injury could have been prevented, you should contact a birth injury attorney immediately.

Statute of Limitations for a Birth Injury Lawsuit in Maryland

If your healthcare providers have made medical mistakes in Towson, MD, or anywhere else in the Baltimore County area, you should speak to a personal injury lawyer immediately. They will inform you of the time limits and will be able to advise you on the best course of action for seeking maximum compensation.

For medical malpractice cases, you have a limited amount of time to make a claim. After this period, your case will be thrown out, and you will forgo any chance of raising a claim relating to the specific incident. This time limit is known as the Statute of Limitations.

Under this statute, you only have three years from the date the malpractice occurred or 5 years from the incident if the injuries are not discovered immediately. However, in the second case, you will still only have three years from the date the injuries are discovered and the total time elapsed cannot be more than 5 years.

While this may seem like a long period of time, medical malpractice cases can take a long time to complete. Your chances of success are also a lot higher if you get in touch with a personal injury attorney immediately. This is because it can take a long period of time to collect enough evidence and build your case.

Four Elements to Prove in Maryland Birth Injury Lawsuits

In any personal injury or medical malpractice case, there are four important elements that need to be proved.

- The medical provider owes you a duty of care - All medical providers owe a duty of care to their patients.

- The medical provider breached their duty of care - They behaved differently from how a reasonable person would in similar circumstances.

- The breach of their duty of care resulted in preventable birth injuries.

- These injuries led to damages, such as medical expenses.

Which Malpractice Law Firm To Hire For Your Case

If you want the best chances of seeking full and maximum compensation for the trauma you and your child have been through, you need to hire a medical malpractice attorney with experience and a proven track record. This can be difficult, especially for those who have never needed an attorney before.

You should avoid making a choice based solely on flashy tv ads or billboards. We recommend you dig a little deeper. Check independent review sites like AVVO and ask your potential lawyers for their previous client reviews.

Once you have narrowed it down, arrange some initial consultations with the attorneys on your shortlist. In this meeting, you can ask the questions you need to ask, have your case evaluated and gauge whether or not your personalities gel or clash.

You may have to spend the next several years working with your attorney, so ensure you are comfortable with them.

During your free consultation, here are some things to look out for:

- Experience - Lawsuits involving birth injuries are often complicated. Your chosen attorney will need to be highly skilled as the insurance companies used by medical providers always employ teams of competent and experienced attorneys. You should check if your attorney has victories in previous cases similar to yours.

- Legal Expertise - Medical malpractice cases are the most complex form of personal injury claim due to the rules and regulations that surround the medical industry. Your attorney should dedicate most of their professional time to working on medical malpractice cases.

- Medical expertise - Even though your medical malpractice lawyer is not medically trained, they must have a certain understanding of the medical field and must have a strong panel of experts they can call upon to advise them.

Maryland Birth Injury FAQs