How Do I Know if Surgical Errors Led to My Baby’s Birth Injury?
If you had to have surgery while you were pregnant or your baby required emergency surgery soon after birth and now your child suffers from the serious consequences of a birth injury, you must be wondering what happened. There are birth injuries that could not have been prevented, but the sad truth is that many birth injuries are the result of preventable negligence. A surgeon is not immune from making a mistake that might cost your child the bright future that you envisioned for him or her. There are questions that you can ask to determine whether it is likely that there was a problem during the surgery or the pre- or post-operative period, that caused the terrible birth injury.
Did the surgeon conduct a thorough analysis of the necessity of surgery and discuss the pros and cons with you?
Oftentimes, a surgeon is focused on doing the procedure rather than making sure that it is the best possible option for the patient. Did your surgeon sit down with you and discuss the potential harm to your child if the surgery was performed? If it was an emergency situation, were any options presented or was surgery the only solution to the exigent circumstances that was offered?
Was there a delay between when the condition that required surgery presented and when the surgery was performed?
There are times when a delay in diagnosis or beginning treatment will cause severe harm to an unborn child or a newborn. If the surgeon was not consulted in a timely manner or the surgeon failed to react to an emergency situation with the speed that the circumstances required, then he may be liable for medical malpractice.
Were there errors in the laboratory tests?
The surgery that was performed and led to your baby’s birth injury may not have been necessary. Did any doctors discuss the lab results that led to the decision to perform surgery? When there are complications during a pregnancy, it is possible that the surgeon and other medical personnel did not take the time to double-check the lab work to make sure that surgery really was warranted.
Did the medical staff carefully monitor the baby and your condition throughout the entire surgical process?
When things become chaotic, or there are other situations that require monitoring, the medical staff may neglect the machines and readouts that are critical to determining the condition of both mother and child. When you were awake and aware of what was going on around you, was there a time that the medical professionals were distracted or did not carefully monitor the display of vital statistics? You may have faced a situation where you knew something was going wrong and tried to get someone to pay attention to your concerns, but you were ignored until it was too late and the harm to your child was irreversible.
There are many errors that may have occurred when you or your child required surgery. The purpose of a malpractice action for a birth injury is not to make hard-working doctors and nurses feel bad because they made mistakes, it is to get you the resources that you need to care for your child. Experienced birth injury attorneys can help you get both the answers that you deserve and the compensation that your child and family need.
Dealing with the consequences of a birth injury requires all of your focus and attention, but do not give up your right to get the compensation that you and your child deserve. You only have a limited amount of time to find out the reason why your child has special needs as a result of a birth injury. The compassionate and dedicated Tennessee birth injury attorneys at Bailey & Greer, PLLC will sit down with you and learn what happened in order to present you with some possible solutions. We want to provide you with all the information that you need to make the decision that is best for your child and family. To make an appointment for a free and confidential consultation, please call us at (888) 470-9143.
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