Birth Injury Lawyer in Greensboro NC
Has your infant been a victim of birth trauma due to negligence? Do you need an experienced, compassionate birth injury lawyer? Greensboro-based Ward Black Law is currently investigating cases like this across North Carolina. Don’t let your child be a victim of infant medical malpractice; seek the counsel of professionals. The birth injury lawyers at Ward Black Law can partner with you to rectify the harm that has been done.
Background on Birth Injury
You did everything right: you read all the pregnancy books, took your vitamins, followed the proper diets, suited up for easy exercise regimes and attended birthing classes. But when the big day finally arrived, something went wrong – and it was the last thing you expected.
Birth injury, or pediatric injury, is physical trauma to newborns sustained during pregnancy, labor and delivery or shortly after birth. These injuries occur most often during transit through the birth canal due to compression and contraction or forces that restrict blood flow and oxygen intake. Childbirth is a naturally traumatic experience both for the mother and baby, so birth injury is relatively common, presenting in 7 out of 1,000 live births in the United States. Unfortunately, however, some of these injuries are preventable, and result from negligence on the part of doctors, nurses and midwives.
Common Birth Injuries
- Hypoxic-ischemic Encephalopathy HIE (damage to the brain cells from a lack of oxygen)
- Bleeding in the brain
- Caput Succedaneum (swelling of the scalp)
- Cephalohematoma (hemorrhaging of blood underneath the periosteum)
- Bruising
- Facial nerve damage
- Monoplegia
- Skull fracture
- Spastic or Double Hemiplegia
- Spastic Diplegia
- Cerebral Palsy (paralysis or lack of control of the brain, a group of disorders affecting the brain and nervous system functions including movement, hearing, seeing, and thinking)
- Erb’s Palsy (an injury to the delicate web of nerves in the neck and upper chest, leading to limited movement and feeling in the arms, hands and fingers)
- Stillbirth
Infant Medical Malpractice
As parents of a brand new baby, you should not be left asking, “Why did this happen?” You should not be grieving over a preventable tragedy. Medical malpractice occurs when a health care provider deviates from an applicable standard of care and causes harm to a patient. Cases of infant medical malpractice may include:
- Failure to accurately analyze fetal ultrasounds
- Failure to identify medical conditions in the mother during pregnancy, such as gestational diabetes (contributing to high-weight infants)
- Failure to respond to signs of distress in the mother or baby
- Improper use of delivery instruments, such as forceps or suction
- Failure to expedite delivery of the baby or perform a cesarean section (c-section) if necessary
- Failure to properly manage complications during pregnancy
- Improper administration of Pitocin, a drug that is used to induce or facilitate labor
- Inability to properly resuscitate or care for the newborn after delivery
