The Work of a New Mexico Birth Injury Attorney
Unfortunately, many medical mistakes in the delivery room lead to severe birth injuries for newborns. These injuries can result in a lifetime of care and medical expenses that drain families' budgets.
Like all malpractice claims, birth injury cases need to prove that the medical professional breached their duty to provide reasonable medical care. This is a complicated task.
Create a Claim
The legal process of a birth injury claim begins with a thorough examination of your child's medical records. These documents contain a wealth of information that could prove the doctor acted negligently. A competent attorney can determine the most crucial evidence and gather other documents that can be used to back your claim.
The lawyer will work closely with one or more medical experts to establish that the doctor's actions didn't meet the standards of care expected by professionals in the same field. A medical expert can help jurors understand the reason why the doctor's omission to act or actions led to the injuries of your child.
If a medical professional can demonstrate that your child's injuries resulted from a doctor's negligence the next step is to determine what damages your child could be liable for. This will include past and future medical expenses, loss of earnings over the course of a year and suffering and pain.
You could be entitled punitive damages or exemplary damage dependent on the severity of the injuries that your child sustained. These additional damages are intended to penalize the medical professional who was at fault for their reckless inattention or carelessness and to deter others from acting in a similar way.
Many birth injuries are the result of medical errors during the delivery of the baby. These errors can happen anytime during pregnancy however they are most likely to occur during the labor and delivery. When a medical professional commits malpractice, they can cause grave and long-lasting injuries to both the mother and infant.
Some of the most common types of birth injuries include shoulder dystocia, brain damage, spinal cord injuries, and Erb's Palsy. Erb's palsy is a type of nerve damage that causes arm paralysis. It is usually caused by a trauma during birth to the brachial plexus. Most often, this problem can be avoided with appropriate treatment and intervention.
New Mexico law has strict statutes of limitation that stipulate an imposed time limit within which you are able to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Your lawyer will determine if your case is eligible for an exception to these deadlines. Even if your case is strong the case will be dismissed in the event that the time limit has passed. It is imperative to contact a New Mexico birth injury attorney as soon as possible to ensure timely filing of your lawsuit.
Preparing for trial
The work of preparing for trial begins much before the trial date, as the legal teams review the evidence and establish their theories of the trial. Then, they have to identify all witnesses and prepare questions for them. They will also have to compile all exhibits to be used during the trial. They also have to prepare jury instructions. All of this is crucial to make a claim that is successful and secure compensation for victims.
A birth injury caused by a medical error could cause a profound impact on a family. Children who suffer from such injuries require medical attention and treatment throughout their lives. Families may need financial assistance to pay for therapies as well as treatments and equipment. An experienced New Mexico birth injuries attorney can help families recover compensation to cover these costs.
In order to file a birth injury lawsuit the family must show that their medical professional or doctor failed to provide the care that an experienced medical professional would have provided under similar circumstances. Medical malpractice is exactly what it is. To prove this, the injured party must establish four elements such as duty of care, breach of that duty, causation, and damages.
Many medical mistakes that cause birth injuries are merely mistakes like misdiagnosis or improper treatment of prenatal issues. Some are more complex, such as shoulder dystocia. This is an illness which can result in partial or total paralysis of the arm. In certain cases birth injuries are only apparent later in childhood, as the child is unable to complete developmental milestones.
Contacting a lawyer for birth injuries as early as you can after the injury is important in order to avoid the time frame when the initial statute of limitation (SOL) could run out. There are some exceptions to the SOL that can extend the time limit for filing a suit. A skilled lawyer for birth injuries can explain the SOLs that apply to your case and recommend an appropriate timeframe for filing a suit.
Expert testimony is typically required to show that the doctor's treatment was not up to par with the standards of their field of expertise. A qualified medical malpractice firm, like Miller Weisbrod Olesky is able to work with highly-respected experts across the country to establish these facts in a birth injury claim.
Making a Claim
A birth injury can cause a permanent and life-altering impact on the child, parents, and family. A successful claim could offer compensation for current and future medical expenses, income loss as well as suffering and pain. It could also be used to pay for special equipment and therapies. A successful claim requires an expert medical opinion that proves the doctor, nurse or any other healthcare professional breached their duty of caring and caused the child’s injuries.
A New Mexico birth injury lawyer can assist families in obtaining the justice they deserve through a lawsuit filed against the responsible medical provider or healthcare facility. It is important to keep in mind that medical malpractice claims have strict statutes. An attorney can look over the details of the case and determine the date when the statute of limitations began to run to ensure that legal action can be initiated before it expires.
In some cases doctors may be held responsible for birth injuries, even if medical negligence wasn't present at the time of delivery. This type of negligence may be due to a delay in diagnosing or treating a maternal condition or the improper use of forceps during birth or a failed Caesarean section.
A birth injury could also be the result of a insufficient or prolonged labor. A New Mexico birth-injury lawyer can analyze the case's details to determine the possible accountable parties, including doctors, nurses, or hospitals. Often AccidentInjuryLawyers are filed against the hospital where the healthcare professional who was negligent was employed.
It is not unusual for defendant to claim that there are other possible causes for the baby's injuries such as birth defects or fetal developmental issues. A New Mexico birth injury attorney can help the victim and their family counter this argument by establishing that there was evidence of negligence and that the medical professional's negligence or inability to act on their own directly caused the child's injuries.
Miller Weisbrod Olesky, a New Mexico birth injury attorney will examine the case. They can also employ one or more medical experts to establish that the healthcare provider's actions or inactions fall short of the standard of care for a similar situation. This is what caused the child's injuries. A successful claim can recover compensatory damages, which include future and past medical expenses, loss of income and pain and suffering and other damages.