The Work of a New Mexico Birth Injury Attorney
Unfortunately, many medical mistakes in the delivery room cause serious birth injuries for infants. These injuries can cause an entire lifetime of medical costs and treatment, which can take the financial burden off families.
Like all malpractice claims, birth injuries require proving that the medical professional breached their duty to provide fair medical care. This is a complex task.
Prepare a Claim
The legal procedure for a birth injury case starts by analyzing the medical records of your child. These documents may contain valuable information that proves the doctor was negligent. A competent attorney can determine the most important evidence and gather other documents that can be used to back your claim.
The attorney will work closely with one or more medical experts to prove that the doctor did not meet the standards of care expected by a professional in the same field. An expert can help the jurors comprehend how the doctor's failure to act or conduct led to the injuries of your child.
If the medical expert can demonstrate that your child's injuries were caused by the doctor's negligence, the next step is to determine the damages your child will receive. This includes past and future medical expenses and lost earnings over a lifetime as well as pain and suffering.
Depending on the severity of your child's injuries, you may be legally entitled to damages for punitive or exemplary injuries. These additional damages are designed to penalize the medical professional who was at fault for their reckless negligence or disregard and discourage others from acting in the same manner.
Medical errors that occur during the birth of a child are responsible for numerous birth injuries. These mistakes can occur at any time during pregnancy, but they tend to occur during the delivery process. Medical malpractice can cause permanent and serious injuries to both the mother and the child.
The most frequent birth injuries are shoulder dystocia, brain damage, spinal cord injuries, and Erb's paralysis. Erb's Palsy is a form of nerve damage that causes paralysis in the arm. It is usually caused by a trauma during birth to the brachial-plexus. Often this problem can be avoided with the right treatment and intervention.
New Mexico law has strict laws that limit the time you have to file a lawsuit for medical malpractice. The lawyer will determine if your case is eligible for exceptions to these deadlines. Even if your case is strong the case will be dismissed in the event that the statute of limitations has run out. To ensure that your lawsuit is filed in time, it is essential to get in touch with a New Mexico attorney for birth injury as soon as you are able to.
Prepare for Trial
The process of preparing for a trial begins prior to the date of trial and the legal teams analyze the evidence and develop their theories. They must then determine the witnesses and prepare questions for them. They must also compile all the evidence that will be used during the trial. They also need to prepare jury instructions. All of this is crucial to present a successful claim and to secure compensation for victims.
A birth injury that is caused by a medical error could have a life-changing impact on families. Children who suffer such injuries will need medical services and care for the rest of their lives. Families may need financial assistance to pay for therapies as well as treatments and equipment. A skilled New Mexico birth injury attorney can help families obtain financial compensation that can help pay for these needs.
In Accident Injury Lawyers to file a lawsuit for birth injury, a family must demonstrate that the doctor or medical professional didn't provide the kind of care that a reasonable medical professional in similar circumstances would have provided. 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 errors that result in birth injuries are simple errors such as misdiagnosis and improper treatment of prenatal problems. Certain are more complicated such as shoulder dystocia that can result in complete or partial arm paralysis. In certain cases birth injuries are only visible later in childhood, when the child is unable to complete developmental milestones.
Contacting a birth injury lawyer as soon as you can following the injury is essential in order to avoid the time frame when the initial statute of limitation (SOL) could expire. There are exceptions to the SOL which can extend the time limit for filing a suit. A skilled birth injury attorney can provide specific SOLs applicable to your particular case and recommend an appropriate time frame to file a lawsuit.
Expert testimony is often required to demonstrate that the doctor's care was not up to par with the standards of their specialty. A qualified medical malpractice firm like Miller Weisbrod Olesky is able to work with highly-regarded experts around the country to establish these facts in a birth injury claim.
How to File a Claim
Birth injuries can have a permanent and life-altering impact on the child, parents and family. A successful claim may provide reimbursement for medical expenses and income loss and pain and suffering. It could also be used to pay for specific therapies and equipment. However, a successful claim requires expert medical evidence to prove that the doctor, nurse, or any other healthcare provider breached their duty of care and caused the child's injuries.
A New Mexico birth injury attorney can assist families to obtain the justice they deserve by making a claim against accountable medical professionals or the healthcare facility. It is important to keep in mind that medical malpractice claims have strict statutes. A lawyer can go over the specifics of the case and determine when the statute of limitations began to expire to ensure that legal action can be taken before the statute of limitations expires.
In certain instances doctors may be held responsible for birth injuries even if medical negligence was not committed at the time of delivery. This type of negligence could result from a delay in diagnosing the maternal condition, or by not properly using forceps to deliver the baby or even the failure of a Caesarean.
Birth injuries can be caused by lack or prolonged labor. A New Mexico birth injury lawyer can examine the facts of a case and identify the parties who could be responsible, such as doctors, nurses and hospitals. Most often, these lawsuits are filed against the facility where the negligent healthcare professional was employed.
It is not uncommon for an individual defendant or their attorney to claim that there may be other causes for the baby's injuries. This could be due to genetic issues or issues with fetal development. A New Mexico birth injury attorney can assist the victim and their family counter this argument by establishing that there was evidence of negligence and that the medical professional's actions or inability to act in a direct manner caused the child's injuries.
Miller Weisbrod Olesky, a New Mexico birth injury attorney is able to investigate the situation. They can also employ one or more medical experts to prove that the healthcare provider's actions or inactions were short of the standard of care for a similar situation. This is the reason for the child's injuries. A successful case could result in compensation for future and past medical costs, lost income, pain and discomfort, and other damages.