Corpus Christi Birth Injury Attorneys

Was Your Child’s Injury Caused by Substandard Medical Care?

Birth injuries can occur for different reasons, but no matter their cause, they may have significant emotional and physical consequences. If your child experienced a birth injury, you might face financial burdens now and throughout your child’s life. You may need to deal with ongoing medical expenses, special schooling, physical therapy, and much more. It is essential to recover financial compensation that can cover your child’s current, ongoing, and lifelong care.

The Bandas Law Firm has years of experience handling birth injury claims in Texas. We can determine if your physician handled the birth properly or if another healthcare professional may have been negligent before, during, or after labor and delivery. If substandard care was provided, our Corpus Christi birth injury attorneys can fight to bring the responsible parties to justice.

Types of Birth Injuries

Preventable birth injuries may range from minor to very serious. They all deserve attention because someone did not handle your baby properly during childbirth. Birth injuries could include broken bones, cerebral palsy, or even death. No matter the situation, if there was negligence involved, you may wish to consider pursuing a case against the at-fault party as soon as possible.

Some of the ways that birth injury can occur include:

• Unnecessary or improper use of forceps or vacuum extractor during delivery
• Improper delay in ordering a C-section
• Failure to monitor or address fetal distress
• Improper use of Pitocin, a drug used to induce labor
• Failure to perform necessary testing during pregnancy
• Neglecting to handle or refer high-risk patients in the proper manner

Birth injuries are not just limited to the baby. If the mother was injured during childbirth and negligence was involved, you could have a case as well.

How Do Mistakes Cause Fetal Injury?

Though babies that a mother carries to term enter the world in a much better condition than premature babies, the labor process is still incredibly fraught with risk. Technology has helped us decrease the likelihood of serious and fatal incidents; however, the forces on a fetus during delivery can cause permanent harm. This can happen during a difficult labor or during an intervention in the birthing process. Doctors are well aware of the warning signs (some of which they may notice before birth) of serious injuries. For example, if fetal heart rate monitors pick up tachycardia or bradycardia (heart rate that is too fast or too slow, respectively), the baby is likely in distress and in need of intervention. If doctors fail to act in critical moments like this, infants may be born with disabilities that will affect them for their entire lives.

Types of Birth Injuries

Babies may suffer mental and/or physical injuries during birth. During labor, a fetus’ oxygen supply still comes via the mother’s blood. However, if either the placenta or umbilical cord have their connection to either the mother or the fetus disrupted, a lack of oxygen flow can quickly cause brain injuries. These include:

• Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE)
• Cerebral Palsy
• Seizures
• Cognitive impairment

When labor is difficult for the mother, it is typically difficult for the fetus as well. Sometimes, delivering the baby can be difficult, especially if it is positioned in a nonstandard manner or is on the larger side. Birth injuries often involve the shoulder as it may become stuck during delivery, stretching the joint away from the neck in a dangerous manner. Also known as brachial plexus injuries, these stresses can cause damage to the musculoskeletal system. They include:

• Obstetric Brachial Plexus Palsy
• Erb’s Palsy
• Klumpke’s Paralysis

The nerve damage can affect the function of the arms, wrists, and hands. Some other injuries that may occur include:

• Subgaleal or intracranial hemorrhage
• Facial nerve paralysis
• Retinal hemorrhage
• Skull fracture

Though outcomes vary with injury type, some babies need extensive treatment and/or will live with a disability for the rest of their life.

Creating a Valid Birth Injury Claim

You will need to do a few things in order to have a valid birth injury claim, including proving that negligence was involved and caused the injury. Negligence can occur if the physician or healthcare worker did not follow standards for care during birth or if they used improper procedures to handle the birth itself.

When you work with a team of Corpus Christi birth injury attorneys at the Bandas Law Firm, we will go through the whole research and discovery process to find negligence and document it properly. Of course, if your child has suffered from a birth injury, then dealing with a lawsuit may be the last thing on your mind. Let us handle everything for you so you can focus on your child’s care. We strive to pursue maximum compensation in every birth injury claim we handle.