When Should I Seek Legal Advice For A Birth Injury?

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Birth injuries can be a feature of medical negligence cases, but these usually focus on injuries to the newborn. Injuries to the mother during childbirth are also common, but are often overlooked or dismissed as being a natural consequence of the birth process.

This is not always the case. Birth injuries can have long-term and life-changing effects on the mother, and, in many situations, could have been avoided if they are the result of negligence. In those situations the mother is entitled to seek redress.

Negligently sustained birth injuries to mothers can include:

• Urine and/or faecal incontinence due to a missed or inappropriate repair of a 3rd or 4th degree tear;
• A baby being born with severe disabilities because there was a failure to scan for fetal anomalies, (wrongful birth claims are brought by Mothers);
• Serious injuries during caesarean section delivery;
• Retained parts of the placenta;
• Severe complications due to a failure to diagnose and manage pre-eclampsia;
• Haemorrhage due to a failure to diagnose and manage placenta previa;
• Urological injury and/or haemorrhage due to a failure to diagnose and manage an abnormally invasive placenta.

Why should I seek legal advice in relation to birth injury?

With appropriate care a mother should not expect injuries to occur as a result of the above, and so seeking expert legal advice is the next step. Our clinical negligence department at Ison Harrison can help you make a claim for damages, which may be simply to help you get back on your feet and continue a normal life, or to fund ongoing treatment and rehabilitation.

Once we have had your injuries assessed we can help establish a programme of rehabilitation for you. This could involve therapy, support groups, medication or physical treatment. At the same time we can build a claim for damages to ensure you are adequately supported financially and suitably rewarded for the pain, discomfort and losses you have suffered.

We fully understand that many women are reluctant to come forward and discuss something that causes them great stress or embarrassment. But it is very important that women understand that that there is a legal framework in place which could help them: get answers; help stop the same mistakes happening to other patients; and facilitate a payment which puts them back in the situation they would have been but for any negligently sustained injuries.

For a confidential chat, speak to our clinical negligence team today on 0113 284 5000 or email clinneg@isonharrison.co.uk