Were You or Your Child a Victim of Birth Injury Medical Negligence?

If something went wrong during your delivery or your child is showing signs of complications after birth, you may wonder whether your health care provider’s mistakes contributed to what happened. Birth injury medical negligence occurs when a medical professional causes harm to a mother or child because they failed to meet accepted medical standards during labor or delivery. These types of errors can have devastating consequences for families, including long-term disabilities that demand a lifetime of financial and emotional resources.

At Levin & Perconti, we help families impacted by preventable birth injuries seek compensation and accountability for the harm they’ve endured. Our Chicago birth injury lawyers have supported countless families during the most challenging times of their lives. We’ve recovered numerous multi-million-dollar birth injury settlements for our clients, and we’re ready to put that experience to work for you.

Common Types of Birth Injuries Caused by Negligence

Birth injuries may happen when medical providers overlook warning signs, delay necessary interventions, or use improper techniques during labor and delivery. We represent families dealing with a wide range of preventable birth injuries, including:

Cerebral palsy: This disability can develop when a baby experiences oxygen deprivation during labor, including situations where providers fail to respond to signs of fetal distress.
Erb’s palsy: A form of nerve damage, this injury can occur when a provider uses excessive force to free a baby’s shoulder during delivery.
Fractures: Newborns may suffer bone fractures when providers misuse delivery tools or apply too much force during the birth process.
Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy: This form of brain injury may occur when providers delay critical interventions during labor, such as an emergency C-section.
Nerve injuries: Providers may cause nerve damage when they apply excessive pressure when delivering a baby or misuse forceps or a vacuum extractor.
Caput succedaneum: The improper use of delivery tools can create excessive force on the scalp, contributing to abnormal swelling. Unnecessarily prolonged labor can also increase the risk by exposing the baby to continuous pressure in the birth canal.
Intracranial hemorrhage: Bleeding inside the skull can occur when providers place too much pressure on a premature baby’s head or overlook complications.

Signs Your Child’s Birth Injury May Be Related to Malpractice

Some birth injuries are apparent immediately after birth, while others emerge slowly as a child grows. Only a qualified medical professional can diagnose a birth injury, but certain red flags may suggest that a preventable error occurred during labor or delivery.

You may notice that your child isn’t developing as expected, or you may feel that the explanations you’ve received don’t entirely line up with your child’s symptoms. These symptoms do not necessarily mean a provider was negligent, but they may be signs that further medical and legal evaluation is appropriate.

Common signs of birth injury negligence include behavioral or physical symptoms such as:

Developmental delays or failure to meet age-appropriate milestones
Difficulty moving part of the body
Seizures
Muscle stiffness or weakness
Feeding struggles or weak suck
Unusual irritability
Hoarseness while crying
Excessive sleepiness or lethargy

If you suspect your child may have suffered a birth injury, trust your instincts and seek medical attention. Afterward, consider getting a legal evaluation from our birth injury lawyers to better understand what happened and what your next steps might be.

Proving Medical Negligence in a Birth Injury Case

Not every birth injury is caused by medical negligence, as complications can occur even when health care providers act responsibly. To recover compensation for a birth injury, you must prove four key elements of negligence:

Duty of care: The medical provider owed you a duty to deliver care consistent with accepted medical standards. This duty automatically exists in any patient-provider relationship.
Breach of duty: The medical provider failed to meet those standards.
Causation: The provider’s breach of duty directly caused injury to you or your child.
Damages: The injury resulted in actual losses, such as medical expenses or pain and suffering.

Our attorneys work with independent medical professionals who can explain what the standard of care required, identify where your providers fell short, and determine how those decisions affected the outcome. We may also analyze your medical records—such as charts, fetal monitoring strips, and delivery notes—to further prove medical negligence.

What Compensation Can Families Recover for Birth Injuries?

When negligence causes preventable harm, you may seek compensation for the losses your family has suffered due to your child’s birth injury. These include a range of economic and non-economic damages, such as:

Past and future medical expenses
Therapy costs
Special education costs
Long-term care costs
Lost wages for the work you missed during your child’s initial recovery period
Lost earning capacity when a child’s injury is expected to affect their ability to work later in life
Physical pain and suffering
Emotional distress

If your child died as a result of their birth injuries, you may pursue compensation through a wrongful death claim. Wrongful death damages may include funeral and burial expenses, as well as the emotional suffering your family has endured.

Each birth injury claim is worth a different amount. Your medical malpractice case’s settlement value will depend on factors unique to your family’s circumstances, such as the severity of the injury and its long-term effects.

How Levin & Perconti Supports Families After a Birth Injury

Our Chicago birth injury attorneys understand the emotional and financial strain families face after a preventable birth injury. You don’t have to add a stressful medical malpractice claim to your list of worries. Let us fight for you while you focus on caring for your family and moving forward.

Our firm takes a compassionate, family-centered approach to every medical malpractice birth injury case we take on. When you turn to us for help, we’ll take the time to get to know you and investigate what happened, building a strong case that proves negligence, tells your family’s story, and conveys the challenges you’ve been forced to navigate.

We’ll negotiate with the medical malpractice insurance company on your behalf and pursue the full amount of compensation you’re entitled to. If the insurer refuses to settle for what you deserve, we’ll be ready to file a birth injury lawsuit and present your case in court.

If you believe negligence played a role in your child’s injury, we’re here to help you fight for the closure and resources you need to support your family’s future. Contact us online or call (312) 332-2872 for a free consultation about your rights and options.