Gwinnett County Birth Injury Attorneys
The worst nightmare any parent can have is seeing their newborn child in pain. If that pain is caused by a preventable birth injury that may impact and derail the rest of your child’s life, you deserve nothing less than action and representation. That’s why you need us.
At Kenney & Medina, P.C., we are attorneys who fight for clients and their families after an injury under medical care in Suwanee. As birth injury lawyers, we seek accountability for the devastating outcomes of these injuries and help you take the steps you need to get your child the care they deserve. We will help you build your case and pursue compensation for your child’s birth injury with all the skill and insight we’ve gained over 70 years of combined experience.
Why Birth Injuries Happen
Birth is possibly the most traumatic experience a person can go through. It is physically demanding, extremely painful and emotionally chaotic. The emotional and physical pain of birth requires significant recovery time for the mother, and that’s if everything goes perfectly.
But a birth injury is one of the results if things are not perfect during the labor and delivery. There are a number of potential complications to a birth, and any one of them could result in an injury to the child. They can include:
- Loss of oxygen to the fetus
- Improper forceps use to remove the child
- Premature labor
- Breech birth
- C-section errors
These factors during the birth may not be anyone’s immediate fault. But recognizing the signs of fetal distress during a birth is a key duty of your care team. If they cannot accurately and regularly see how the child is doing during the birth, the risks of the child ending up with a long-term birth injury raise dramatically.
Delayed Diagnosis Of Birth Injuries
In some ways, it is preferable for your child to have a broken bone as a result of a birth injury, because the doctors can find and treat those injuries immediately. There are many types of injuries that are not immediately diagnosable and much harder to treat, including brain injuries.
What makes brain injuries that occur during birth so challenging is that infants have so few capabilities, the hospital staff has few indicators to alert them a problem. This will lead to delays in treatment and diagnosis, causing more uncertainty and pain for you and your child.
It’s a heartbreaking thing to watch your child miss milestones and struggle. It can be even more challenging for you to trace the potential cause of your child’s pain back to their birth. However, Georgia’s statute of limitations allows you to pursue any such injury as this from the date of discovery, not necessarily the date of birth. Still, once you discover what happened and why, you must act quickly because you only have two years to file your lawsuit.
Types Of Birth Injuries
While the birth injury itself may be a result of actions taken or not taken during the delivery process, the ultimate outcomes of those actions can lead to many different conditions:
- Broken bones, such as legs and clavicles
- Spinal cord damage
- Brain damage
- Internal organ damage
When hospital staff fail to notice that your child is in distress, they can be held liable for these injuries. We’ve been able to pursue compensation for just such injuries for families for many years. If you believe your child was the victim of a birth injury, reach out to us to tell us your story.
Frequently Asked Questions About Birth Injuries
Since 1998, clients who are suffering from the fallout of birth injuries have turned to us with their most pressing questions. With research and discussion, we can provide you with the answer to almost any question you have. However, some of our clients earliest questions are much more general. Here, we provide a few answers to those questions.
What are the most common preventable birth injuries in Georgia?
The most common types of birth injuries are generally those caused by force or loss of oxygen. They can include:
- Broken clavicles: the clavicle, or collar bone, is one of the most fragile and most under stress bones in a child’s body during birth.
- Cerebral palsy: This birth injury is caused by brain damage that occurs during birth. This damage could be the result of oxygen loss or an overuse of force during a difficult delivery.
- Erb’s palsy: Caused by applying too much stress to the child’s head or neck during delivery.
- Eye, head or face damage: Improper use of tools or vacuums during delivery can cause and exacerbate injuries to the child.
The vast majority of birth injuries are preventable by alert, experienced health care workers who closely monitor your delivery.
Who can be held liable for birth injuries?
There are two groups that can be held liable for birth injuries in Georgia: the health care workers and the facility. Generally speaking, the facility will be the first target of any lawsuit, as they supply the materials and employ the health care team. However, in the case of gross misconduct or failure of duty to care, the health care workers responsible can be targeted individually.
What compensation can families seek in a Georgia birth injury lawsuit?
You can pursue economic damages such as hospital bills and the long term care bills that come with providing treatment to your child. Any cost you incur in the pursuit of treatment and recovery for your child could be a basic part of your recovery.
However, you may be able to pursue noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering and loss of future earnings, if your child is disabled due to the injury.
Dedication. Experience. Tenacity.
A family suffering from a birth injury is more than just one child, it’s everyone. Some birth injuries lead to lifelong complications, and you deserve to pursue every bit of available compensation to help your family recover. We can help you do it.
Reach out to us for a free consultation to learn how we have helped clients all over Gwinnett County with birth injury cases. We’re a dedicated team who knows how to get results. Call us today at 770-564-1600 or send an email using this online form.
You don’t have to stand for medical negligence from your labor and delivery team. We can help you hold them accountable