To prove medical negligence for a birth injury, birth injury lawyers must gather evidence, and hire independent medical professionals to review every action taken by the doctor and the facility. Despite their preventable nature, these types of injuries still occur every day for various reasons.
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How Preventable Birth Injuries Still Occur
Childbirth comes with many inherent risks. There are many steps, practices, and regulations the medical community has in place to prevent many of those risks. Several factors can foul those steps, including human error, mistakes, inaction, and other forms of negligence.
When a preventable birth injury results, to the mother or child, it’s a form of medical malpractice. It’s the preventable nature of these injuries that give lawyers a place to start. Discovery will begin with a question. How could this injury have been prevented? Answering that question will allow legal counsel to start gathering the needed evidence.
Evidence of a Preventable Birth Injury
The first piece of evidence in a birth injury case is the injury itself. Was it preventable? Did the doctor and facility do everything they could to prevent or mitigate the possibility of that particular injury?
These are important distinctions. Consider if the doctor or facility warned the mother of the possibility of that particular injury occurring. If the practice did what it could to mitigate that possibility, and the doctor went about the pregnancy as any other reasonable physician would. Then no one is to blame.
It’s up to the lawyer to pick apart each of those things to determine if anybody involved erred. Plaintiffs can help their birth injury lawyers figure some of these things out. They can do this by keeping extensive records of documents or correspondence gathered during, and after, the pregnancy.
Recovering Damages for Preventable Birth Injuries
With evidence, it’s possible to recover a range of damages. Medical malpractice that leads to birth injuries come with a lot the doctor or facility has to answer for:
- Pain and suffering
- Medical bills for the pregnancy
- Medical bills for treatments for the injury
- Loss of earnings for time spent dealing with the injury
- Past and ongoing care for a child disabled by a preventable birth injury
It’s worth it to pursue cases against those that perpetuate birth injury malpractice. It helps to shine a light on the issue and lowers the possibility of it happening again.