“Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
RESILIENCE AND STRENGTH NEEDED
Our birth injury clients are facing tremendous challenges. We are here to help answer your questions and guide you through the process. In our experience, when your baby has been hurt badly during labor, the obstetrician doctor, nurse, and hospital or healthcare facility will not take responsibility. Of course, we cannot and do not pursue every case, because a bad outcome does not always mean that there has been medical malpractice. When medical negligence has occurred, the impact on your child and the family’s life is catastrophic. The natural human experience is grief and confusion, and the medical providers can come across as non-communicative and arrogant. All too often, in what is supposed to be a joyous occasion, there is a betrayal of trust and feeling of abandonment. Another common scenario is that some providers say one thing, and another says something else, or won’t talk to the family at all.
SHOULDER DYSTOCIA NERVE DAMAGE BIRTH INJURIES
The brachial plexus is a group of nerves running from the spinal cord to the shoulder. During delivery, serious neurological damage can occur to the brachial plexus, causing traumatic injury to the infant, also known as shoulder dystocia.
ERB’S PALSY
Another type of brachial plexus birth injury is called Erb’s palsy, which refers to the stretching or breaking the nerves by the obstetrician doctor or the nurse. This kind of neurological damage can create traumatic, permanent damage to the infant.
CEREBRAL PALSY
If your child has survived childbirth but has cerebral palsy, he or she is facing profound difficulties and disabilities that will challenge the child and family for a lifetime. This will impact the child’s muscle coordination as a result of brain damage suffered by the infant. These kinds of severe harms may have been prevented with proper care during pregnancy and the delivery of your newborn. These types of injuries often take place when the baby does not get enough oxygen during childbirth, also referred to as hypoxia or anoxia. In such a case we would look to the medical record, and get expert medical help to attempt to evaluate whether the healthcare providers were negligent in monitoring the fetal heart rate during delivery.
FOCUSING ON COMPLEX MEDICAL MALPRACTICE CASES
I focus my practice on complicated personal injury cases, including medical malpractice cases involving birth injuries because it is the sort of work that I was born, raised, and have been trained to take on. My experience is in working on complex injury cases in private practice and, before that, I worked for a federal trial judge for several years. I find it very rewarding to use that experience on behalf my clients, who, generally, have been traumatically injured by the carelessness of others. This is almost always a fight that I get to take on for regular people against powerful institutions in our society. What makes our civil justice system great is that an ordinary jury of citizens in the community can provide accountability in these kinds of cases. Without the jury, there are scant few other checks on such unbridled power in our society. So I am proud of the role I can play in that process and these are a few of the main reasons why I focus my practice on these kinds of cases.
If you work with The Babcock Law Firm, I will answer your questions and work with you directly, from the time you call until your matter is resolved. We will get the right help and experts to assist us along the way, of course, because these sorts of lawsuits are large undertakings that require additional assistance for proper professionals. If you work with the firm, we will get to know you and your family well. We will be in close contact with you to learn your story and to keep you updated. Our philosophy is that there is no other way to effectively present your story to the jury, and it is the approach we take with our cases. Of course, you will not owe a fee to the firm unless we recover in your case, either at trial or by settlement.
THE RISKS OF SHOULDER DYSTOCIA CAN BE AVOIDED
One risk factor for the brachial plexus injury is a relatively large baby or fetus. If the baby’s shoulder gets stuck, the OB/GYN doctor and nurses have to be careful to make sure to not apply too much pressure to the baby’s head. This kind of traction can lead to traumatic injury to the infant’s shoulder and neck. Every case is different, but there are signals or risks that medical providers should be aware of and pay attention to in these types of cases to lessen the possibility of these types of injuries to newborn children. If you have questions about the birth injury that your newborn suffered, we can help address your questions. The firm works with medical experts to evaluate these claims and work the cases up for trial. It is necessary to work every one of these cases up fully for trial, because they are not easy or quick to settle. To the contrary, they are generally difficult and protracted cases that take time to work through the court system. And while some cases can eventually be settled, a case will not be settled fairly without preparing the case for trial and being willing to go to trial if necessary.
FILING A COMPLAINT IN A BIRTH INJURY MATTER
Before any medical negligence case is filed in Georgia, a proper medical expert must agree that the responsible health care provider was negligent. In appropriate cases, we work to locate the right expert to file an affidavit to support such medical malpractice complaints in Georgia. Perhaps the most important thing we do in these cases is carefully determine how your child was hurt during delivery, and whether the harm was avoidable. For example, we may need expert help to determine whether a Cesarean section would have been a better option under the circumstances. We may need to review the records carefully to determine what happened during delivery when the shoulder injury (or dystocia) was first observed, or whether the mother was appropriately screened in the first place for certain risk factors for these types of injuries, such as obesity, diabetes, prior difficult deliveries, and pelvic size. In some cases, there can be a terrible medical outcome, but it will not be attributable to a medical mistake. We will work hard to determine how the injury took place, and then give you our best advice about whether a lawsuit should be pursued or not.
For more information, contact The Babcock Law Firm. If you have questions, or want a free evaluation of your case, call for a free consultation at 912-574-7575.