If your child was born with a deformity, disability, or long-term illness, can you sue a doctor for a birth injury? While some birth injuries result from natural causes, many are caused by a medical professional’s negligent actions during pregnancy, delivery, or follow-up care. If you suspect that your doctor’s careless actions caused your child’s injury, you must prove medical negligence to establish a birth injury lawsuit in Illinois.
If you suspect negligence caused a birth injury, contact Ankin Law birth injury attorneys in Chicago for a free case review. Call us today at 312-600-0000.
What Are the Most Common Types of Birth Injuries and Their Causes?
Birth injuries are defined as an impairment of a baby’s body function or structure due to an adverse event that occurs at birth. A birth injury may occur during labor, delivery, or after delivery during post-natal care, especially in babies who require resuscitation in the delivery room. There is a wide spectrum of birth injuries that range from minor to severe, with health problems that cause physical and psychological trauma. The most common types of birth injuries include:
Bruising and Swelling
Some babies suffer minor injuries during delivery and show signs of bruising and swelling of the face and the scalp (caput succedaneum). This type of birth trauma happens when the baby passes through the birth canal and comes in contact with the mother’s pelvic bones. It also occurs when a doctor uses forceps that leave temporary marks and vacuum extraction devices that cause cuts and scalp bruising. Birth trauma to the head causes fluid to accumulate between the protective covering of the skull and the scalp, leading to swelling that generally resolves within 48 hours.
Bone Fractures
Bone fractures can happen before or during delivery. Clavicle and collarbone fractures are the most common and occur in up to 15 in every 1,000 live births. These fractures happen during breech deliveries or when there is a problem delivering the baby’s shoulder. The humerus is the second most fractured bone associated with newborn delivery. Other fractures, such as femur and rib fractures occur, but not as often.
Nerve Damage
Facial nerve injuries are the most common injury associated with a traumatic birth, occurring in around 10 in 1,000 live births. They are caused by pressure on the baby’s face from labor or using forceps. Brachial plexus palsy and shoulder dystocia can occur when the group of nerves in the arms and hands is injured. The brachial plexus is a network of nerves between the neck and shoulder that provide sensation and muscle control in the fingers, hand, arm, and shoulder.
Brachial plexus injuries often occur when the baby is in a breech position, weighs more than 8 pounds 13 ounces, or during an assisted delivery. Nerve bruising and swelling usually improve within several months, but tearing of the nerve can cause permanent damage. Erb’s palsy is a form of brachial plexus palsy that affects the nerves in the arms. It’s caused by a difficult delivery and results in weakness, loss of feeling, or paralysis of the affected arm.
Brain Injury
Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a birth injury caused by the brain not getting enough oxygen before or shortly after birth. Some children experience mild to moderate effects from HIE while others suffer long-term physical and cognitive impairments, such as developmental delay or cerebral palsy, a condition that affects movements and posture.
A brain bleed, an intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH), is a brain injury that occurs when the pressure or trauma of labor and delivery ruptures the blood vessels that carry blood to and from the brain, and the blood pools in the fluid-filled areas surrounding the brain. IVH primarily affects premature newborns with blood vessels that are not fully developed. A 2022 pediatric neurology study shows that preterm infants with low-grade IVH typically had similar neurological outcomes to other preterm infants, but higher-grade IVH was associated with birth negligence and neurodevelopmental disability.
Can You Sue for a Birth Injury?
A birth injury lawsuit allows parents to seek compensation if their child’s health condition was caused by a medical mistake. Medical malpractice or medical negligence occurs when a medical professional, hospital, or health care clinic fails to care for a patient under the accepted standards of the medical profession and the patient becomes ill or is injured due to those actions.
When can you sue a doctor for a birth injury? When a birth injury happens due to medical negligence, a birth injury attorney can file a lawsuit to recover damages for the parents. Birth injury lawsuits can be filed against doctors, nurses, labor and delivery staff, and the hospital where the birth took place.
What are my rights if my child suffered a birth injury? Compensation awarded to the parents can help with the child’s current and future expenses caused by the birth injury:
- medical bills
- medical and surgical treatments
- rehabilitation and therapy
- mobility aids
- pain and suffering
- loss of enjoyment of life
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the cost of lifetime care for a child who suffers from cerebral palsy, a common type of birth injury, is about $1.65 million. Cerebral palsy usually happens before birth and lasts throughout the child’s lifetime.
Symptoms usually appear during preschool years and can impact the child’s movements, reflexes, and posture. A child with cerebral palsy may have difficulty walking and running due to muscle stiffness, eye muscle imbalance where both eyes don’t focus on the same object, difficulty swallowing, and permanent disabilities like blindness, deafness, and epilepsy. Some children may have intellectual disabilities and struggle with learning and completing specific tasks. There is no cure for cerebral palsy, but treatments can improve function.
What is the difference between a birth injury and a birth defect? A birth injury results from negligent actions or behaviors during pregnancy, delivery, or follow-up care, while a birth defect develops in the womb due to abnormalities of the chromosomes or genetic issues, diseases, nutritional imbalances, consumption of harmful substances, and physical injuries.
How Long Do You Have to File a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit?
In Illinois, medical malpractice lawsuits must be filed in civil court within two years from the date of the injury, or the time that the person should have been aware of the damage. The court sets a timeline for medical malpractice cases because they realize that victims and witnesses may forget important details or lose important documents if the case goes beyond two years. They also uphold the 2-year filing requirement to prevent medical professionals and hospitals from endless fear of lawsuits for old mistakes and injuries that they may or may not have caused.
Birth Injury Cases
For birth injury cases in Illinois, the statute of limitations is different. When a child suffers an injury from birth negligence, the parents may not know right away that the child has been injured. Many birth injury symptoms don’t appear right away, and parents may not become aware of them for months or even years after they occur. When symptoms do appear, parents may not realize the full extent of the child’s injury until much later. With some birth injuries, it can take many years to diagnose a child’s birth injury and assess the full extent of medical damage. For these reasons, the statute of limitation for Illinois birth injury cases is different:
- Birth injury claims must be filed within eight years of the child’s injury
- If the child’s birth injury causes a disability, the statute of limitations can last until the child reaches 22 years of age
For birth injury cases, Illinois courts take into account that the child’s parents may not know that the child has suffered neurological injuries affecting motor or cognitive abilities until the child starts to miss developmental milestones. For example, the child may have suffered injuries at birth that cause a condition like brachial palsy, cerebral palsy, Erb’s palsy, or IVH with delayed symptoms that don’t show up until the child reaches preschool age.
If you live in Illinois and your child is showing symptoms of a birth injury, consult an attorney who handles birth injury and medical malpractice lawsuits. It’s important to know your legal rights and get the best outcome for your case. As a parent, you do not want to miss important deadlines and risk losing the right to pursue just compensation for your child.
If you believe that your child suffers from a birth injury, contact us for a free case review. Our team of Chicago attorneys can give you important legal help to win your case.
