Expectant parents plan for their perfect day when they welcome their new family member into the world. For most parents, the birth of their child lives up to the joy and triumph they anticipated, but when a birth injury occurs, it alters far more than just the birth plan and celebratory happiness of the day. Instead, when a child suffers a significant injury during the labor and delivery process, it changes the trajectory of the family and adversely impacts the child’s entire future and the family’s earning ability, as well as the family’s quality and enjoyment of life.
Although no legal process can repair a birth injury or erase the harm caused to the child and family, a successful birth injury claim opens the door to the best possible medical and educational advantages for the injured child and provides parents with a voice for justice through financial accountability.
Speaking with a Phoenix birth injury lawyer can help families understand their options and pursue the compensation they deserve.
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What Damages Can Parents Recover In a Birth Injury Lawsuit?
Understanding Birth Injuries
The terms birth injury or birth trauma describe any injury or harm that occurs to a child during the labor and delivery process or in the moments following the child’s birth. A birth injury occurs in an estimated one in every 1,000 children born in the United States, amounting to about three birth-injured children born every hour. About 30,000 families each year experience the long-term impacts of a birth-injured child. Around 80% of birth injuries are considered to range from moderate to severe. Tragically, birth injuries are also the cause of about 20% of the average 20,000 infant deaths that happen in the U.S. each year.
What Types of Birth Injuries Cause Long-Term Damages?
Fortunately, many birth injuries are superficial or mild injuries, such as forceps marks or bruises, from which the infant fully recovers, but some birth injuries cause permanent harm with long-term damages suffered by the baby and their parents. The most common birth injuries that cause long-term financial and emotional damages include the following:
- Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) and other brain injuries caused by birth asphyxia or oxygen deprivation, which often cause developmental disability and cerebral palsy
- Skull fractures
- Spinal cord injuries, which often result in paralysis
- Intracranial hemorrhage, or bleeding inside the brain, resulting in cognitive and developmental delays
- Brachial plexus injuries, which often cause Erb’s Palsy
- Facial nerve injuries
- Infections
Birth injuries most commonly result from complications that arise during labor and delivery, such as breech birth, extended labor, cord prolapse, shoulder dystocia, and deliveries requiring forceps, vacuum-assistance, and emergency C-sections.
When the medical providers tasked with a laboring mother’s care fail to meet the medical community’s legal standard of care, they may be held liable for the often extensive damages caused by birth injuries.
What are the Long-Term Economic Damages of Birth Injuries?
Some birth injuries require immediate emergency medical care and weeks of hospitalization. In other cases, hospital caregivers or parents notice symptoms of a birth injury in the hours, days, or weeks following the birth, requiring medical care. After a serious birth injury, these early medical expenses are only the beginning. The potential long-term damages families face after a child’s birth injury include the following:
- Ongoing or long-term medical care is often necessary to address the injury as the child grows and develops
- Special education costs for a child with developmental delays
- Physical therapy to assist a child with mobility and other gross motor skills to support the most normal development possible
- Occupational therapy to encourage normal fine motor skills development so a birth-injured child can perform routine daily tasks like grooming and hygiene, and using writing implements
- Mobility aids and other necessary assistive equipment, and home adaptive equipment
- Lost parental income
In the most severe birth injury cases, a child may require full-time care at home or in a long-term care facility if the child’s medical needs extend beyond the family’s ability.
Birth injuries also often cause lost earnings due to a child’s care needs. Income loss may occur regularly due to frequent medical appointments, or a parent could face reduced overall earning ability or inability to work if a child requires full-time care.
A successful birth injury claim typically recovers compensation for the above economic damages suffered by the birth-injured child’s family.
What Non-Economic Damages Can Parents Recover In Birth Injury Lawsuits?
Although the non-economic damages commonly named in birth injury lawsuits are intangible and more difficult to calculate, it’s also the most impactful aspect of a birth injury on the child and parents. Fortunately, the civil liability system allows injury victims and their immediate family members to add non-economic damages to their claim for compensation, helping to bring a sense of justice while also further alleviating the family’s financial concerns. Common non-economic damages recovered in birth injury claims include the following:
- Compensation for the child’s pain and suffering
- Compensation for a child’s diminished quality of life
- Loss of enjoyment of life damages, as the family may no longer be able to enjoy the same types of outings and activities they engaged in before having a special needs child
- Compensation for the emotional anguish parents experience when their child suffers a life-altering injury
- Loss of companionship, if the child’s impairment is severe and results in the loss of a normal relationship between parent and child or between spouses due to the overwhelming demands of caring for a birth-injured child
In some cases, additional compensation is available for a child with catastrophic injuries, such as the loss of vision or hearing, chronic pain, or the loss of a bodily function.
If a birth injury causes stillbirth or post-natal death, the case may become a wrongful death claim to recover compensation for burial costs and the parents’ emotional grief and anguish.
Who is liable for Birth Injury Damages?
Birth injury damages range from temporary, mild consequences to severe, lifelong disability or impairment. Depending on the circumstances of the birth injury, a doctor, a member of the delivery care and neonatal team, or a hospital or birthing facility may be held liable for birth injury damages.
Most birth injury damages are paid from the at-fault provider’s medical malpractice insurance. A successful claim requires compelling evidence that the birth injury resulted from a provider’s breach of their legal duty of care to the laboring mother and/or newborn. The evidence must also show evidence of the past and future damages caused by the birth injury.
An experienced Phoenix medical malpractice lawyer can evaluate the circumstances, gather critical evidence, and help families pursue the full compensation they are owed.