Birth Injury in the United States — What You Need to Know

No parent wants to find themselves wondering what to do when a birth injury occurs. It’s one of the worst things that can possibly happen to you or a loved one — some sort of accident has occurred and it’s affected the health of a loved one you are ultimately responsible for providing care for.

There is a wide array of common birth injuries for babies, some of the most recurrent ones being related to cerebral palsy birth trauma, or an onset of traumatic birth syndrome.

Luckily, birth injury law is very clear. You have a right to seek damages for malpractice, should it be determined that the physician birthing your new family member was indeed at fault for the injuries suffered.

We depend on doctors for a lot — but they’re not perfect, and they do make mistakes. Over the past few years, it’s been determined that the average amount of compensation paid out for medical malpractice that occurred in the inpatient setting exceeded $363,000. In the outpatient setting, the average amount awarded to victims of healthcare mistakes was slightly lower, but still an impressive $290,000.

While it seems like these sort of occurrences wouldn’t be common enough to warrant retaining a birth injury lawyer or any kind of working understanding of birth injury law, they absolutely are. Medical negligence is actually the third leading cause of death in the United States — right behind heart disease and cancer. It may sound completely counterintuitive, but in the attempt to get Americans healthy and fully functioning again, the healthcare industry does leave a significant portion of Americans worse off than they were before. Simply put, “it happens.”

No matter what your opinion on medical malpractice, one thing is clear — these things do occur frequently enough to warrant knowing a few things should you ever find yourself asking what to do when a birth injury occurs.

About 28,000 birth injuries happen in the United States each year. It can absolutely happen to anyone, and a lack of preparation can make for one messy situation. Share your thoughts below.