New York Birth Injury Lawyers – Representing Families in Ithaca, Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and Upstate New York

Name: New York Birth Injury Lawyer
Rating: 5
Author: Chris

Few events in life are more joyous than the birth of a child. Sadly, these occasions can turn into traumatic incidents if medical mistakes during pregnancy, labor, or delivery cause significant and permanent harm to a newborn.

Doctors and medical workers have an ethical and legal duty of care to provide highly skilled treatment to every patient. This is especially important when it comes to ensuring that a newborn is brought into the world without harm. Unfortunately, reckless and negligent actions by medical providers lead to thousands of severe birth injuries each year, leaving many infants with lifelong disabilities.

If your child sustained a birth injury as a result of a healthcare provider’s negligence, you have the right to file a lawsuit and seek to hold them accountable, and to recover compensation for your child’s medical and care expenses and other damages that you and your family have sustained. As experienced New York birth injury lawyers, we can answer questions about your legal rights and options and explain how we can put our experience to work for you. We represent clients throughout upstate New York, including Ithaca, Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and the surrounding communities.

How Many Birth Injuries Occur Each Year?

Doctors, midwives, nurses, and other medical professionals often make preventable errors before, during, and after the delivery of a child. These errors often lead to devastating, debilitating birth injuries that require a lifetime of ongoing treatment.

Statistics show that hundreds of thousands of potentially avoidable injuries to mothers and children occur during childbirth each year. For instance, in one year, a reported 157,700 potentially avoidable cases were reported, with approximately 160 per 1,000 of these birth injuries being potentially attributable to obstetrical trauma involving medical instruments. Conversely, only 36.2 per 1,000 birth injuries were sustained during deliveries not utilizing medical instrumentation.[1]

In some instances, birth injuries, may be caused by factors out of the control of a physician, such as if an umbilical cord is compressed, depriving a child of oxygen. However, many injuries and disorders, such as Cerebral Palsy, are attributable to medical errors including:

Failing to diagnose critical problems during the pregnancy (such as infections or gestational diabetes).
Misusing forceps or a vacuum extractor.
Administering the wrong dosage of medication
Delaying a Cesarean section when issues arise
Prescribing a medication that has harmful side effects
Premature delivery complications
Failing to respond to bleeding
Failing to respond to fetal or maternal distress

What Are Common Types of Birth Injury?

Injuries sustained during the birth process can have lifelong consequences. When doctors are negligent, many different injuries can occur, including:

Suffocation
Spinal cord injuries
Perinatal asphyxia
Cerebral palsy
Brachial Plexus palsy
Collar bone fractures
Facial nerve palsy
Intracranial hemorrhage
Extra cranial injuries

If your child experienced a birth injury, we can seek to hold accountable the medical professionals responsible for your child’s injuries.

How Can You Recover in a Birth Injury Lawsuit?

Proving a Birth Injury Case

To prevail in a New York birth injury case, you must evince:

The appropriate standard of care
The medical professional failed to adhere to the established standard of care
The child suffered a birth injury as a result of such failure
But for the medical professional’s failure to adhere to the standard of care, the child would not have been injured

If a medical professional denies responsibility for a birth injury, you must show that it is more likely than not that the birth injury occurred because of the acts or omissions of the medical provider.

Types of Damages

If you are successful at proving your case, you may potentially recover damages for the following:

Past and future medical expenses
Lost earnings
Caretaking expenses
Shortened life expectancy
Disability or loss of ordinary life
Increased risk of future harm
Physical and mental pain and suffering
Emotional distress

How Much Can Be Recovered in a Birth Injury Case? Seeking Full Compensation for Future Costs and Expenses

When a severe birth injury occurs, it can result in a lifetime of required care, sometimes even around-the-clock care. Such costs can reach well into the millions of dollars.

In these cases, we retain physicians and other medical and care experts to make and fully support the value of compensation required for the family of a child with birth injuries. Settlement offers that may initially seem large may not, in fact, be that large when the astronomical costs of care are fully determined.

Equally important, the families and child also deserve full compensation for the pain, suffering, and futures damages that will be endured. At trial, a jury deserves to understand the full extent to which a family’s life will be altered as the result of birth injury medical malpractice.

Does My Case Qualify for The New York Indemnity Fund?

In 2011, the State of New York created an indemnity fund to provide a funding source for future medical care costs associated with birth injuries. In cases where a victim is awarded damages, but a defendant does not have the means to pay, this fund may be used to compensate for the deficiency. At Friedlander & Mosher, P.C., we can review your child’s eligibility under New York’s Birth Injury Indemnity Fund and will take all necessary action to seek eligible benefits.

Our Experience with Birth Injury Lawsuits in New York

We have decades of experience in handling birth trauma cases and have secured numerous verdicts and settlements on behalf of injured children and their families.

We understand the emotional, physical, and financial challenges that families face after a birth injury. As part of our representation in a birth injury case, we can evaluate the factual and legal issues involved and will fight vigorously to get you the compensation you and your family deserve.

How Can We Help You?

Medical malpractice lawsuits, especially those concerning birth injuries are complex; we’re here to represent you so that you can focus your time on caring for your child. We begin by providing a free, confidential consultation. During the consultation, we can learn more about your case, and the details surrounding the incident (such as when you first suspected a birth injury, and how the injury has impacted your child and family).

We are tenacious is seeking full compensation. In birth injury cases, doctors, hospitals, and other medical providers can be expected to forcefully contest liability and damages. Those involved will be represented by experienced lawyers who are typically retained by the malpractice insurer who may be liable for paying damages on behalf of the doctor, hospital or other medical provider. In medical malpractice cases, doctors in particular fight hard in order to avoid damage to their reputation and future malpractice premium increases.

We are resolute in taking on all those who are liable, and demanding full and fair compensation. If fair compensation is not offered, we will not hesitate to take the case of a client to trial, and to present our case to a jury so that they can determine liability and damages. Our senior attorney, Bill Friedlander, has been representing injured clients and the families who have lost a loved one for more than 40 years, and he and the firm have recovered countless millions of dollars on behalf of clients both in settlement and at trial.

Get Help from Experienced New York Birth Injury Lawyers

If you believe that your child has been injured due to a medical professional’s negligence and want to file a claim, we want to help you. As experienced medical malpractice and birth injury lawyers, we can explain your options and how we will work tirelessly on behalf of you and your family. We invite you to contact us to schedule your free consultation to learn how we can help.

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Client Review

I was very pleased with Bill and his staff in helping me with my case. I was impressed with his representation. I was compensated for my injuries and was very satisfied with my settlement. I found Bill very understanding and easy to talk to. I would recommend him. Thank you.

Avvo 5 Star Review – Chris

[1] C. Allison Russo and Roxanne M. Andrews, Potentially Avoidable Injuries to Mothers and Newborns During Childbirth, HCUP (May 2009), https://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb74.jsp.

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