Birth Injuries

The health of a newborn child is the most critical concern to expectant parents. When the careless choices made by hospital staff or doctors cause preventable injury to a new baby or the mother that negligence often results in a disabling birth injury or death.   Seeking guidance from an experienced birth injury lawyer in Chicago is a vital step to ensure your rights are protected, and those responsible for your child’s birth injury are held accountable.

The law requires that hospitals, doctors and nurses, or other care providers who cause a birth injury by their careless choices provide compensation for the harm and losses that result. This includes compensation for medical and hospital bills, pain and suffering, and the future needs in caring for the child. 

At Vinkler Law, our birth injury lawyers have award-winning expertise in birth injury and birth trauma cases in Chicago and throughout Illinois. We recognize your primary goal is to provide for the needs of your injured child, both now and well into the future. We will discuss your case details and provide you with the information needing to make the best choices for you and your child – both now and in the future.

Frequent Causes Of Birth Injury Cases

At Vinkler Law, our birth injury lawyers have handled hundreds of birth injury and birth trauma cases caused by a wide range of circumstances. Some of the most frequent causes of birth injury and birth trauma cases include:

• Fetal Oxygen Deprivation – Fetal oxygen deprivation is the leading cause of brain damage to infants at birth occurring in 4 in 1,000 births.
• Labor and Delivery Medication Errors – Mistakes are often many involving various drugs used in the labor and delivery process like Pitocin (oxytocin), and the results can be devastating, including the death of a mother or child.
• Fetal Monitoring Errors – When doctors or nurses make mistakes evaluating or identifying fetal distress or other problems, the result can be a birth injury with lifelong consequences for a baby.
• Infection or Sepsis – Infection can occur during pregnancy, or at the time of birth in either mother or child. Birth injuries arise when a physician fails to detect, diagnose or treat the infection appropriately.
• C-Section Mistakes – Thousands of birth injuries and deaths are the direct results of c-section delays and errors made during the Cesarean delivery process.

Common Types of Birth Injuries and Birth Trauma

When a child suffers injury or harm before, during, or immediately after the birth process, this is considered a birth injury. If an infant suffers physical harm like a broken bone during the delivery, the resulting damage is considered birth trauma. Some common types of birth injuries and birth trauma caused by a negligent healthcare provider include:

• Bone Fractures – Broken bones occur during birth often when a medical provider is trying to maneuver a baby for delivery and include fractures of the clavicle (collarbone), humerus (long bone of the arm), femur (thigh bone), and skull.
• Facial Paralysis – the result of pressure being put on a baby’s face during or before delivery, Referred to as facial nerve palsy, this condition affects the nerves that control the various facial muscles.
• Brain Damage – Infant brain damage may result from physical trauma during the birth or the delivery process, exposure to toxins, deprivation of oxygen, complications with the umbilical cord, and placenta separating from the uterus.
• Cerebral Palsy – Cerebral palsy is a type of brain damage that can happen during or before delivery with a child losing the ability to control his or her muscles and can be the result of a number of birth injuries.
• Shoulder Dystocia – When the shoulder of a baby gets lodged behind his or her mother’s pelvic bone during birth, the result can be shoulder dystocia.
• Erb’s Palsy – Erb’s Palsy is a condition that may result when damage to the nerves running from the spinal court to the shoulders and arms.
• Anoxic and Hypoxic Brain Injury – Hypoxic and anoxic brain injuries can occur when little or no oxygen reaches a baby’s brain during labor or in the delivery process.
• Meconium Aspiration Syndrome – If meconium is present during birth and mixes with amniotic fluid, it can get in an infant’s lungs resulting in serious consequence.
• Wrongful Death – When a birth injury causes the death of a mother or her child, a wrongful death lawsuit often results.