Miami Birth Injury Lawyer

The birth of a child should be a happy and joyous time. You may have been planning for months, getting the nursery just right, adjusting the car seat, and ensuring you have enough diapers to get you through at least the first week home from the hospital. You probably were not thinking about what you would do if your baby was injured during labor and delivery.

When a birth injury occurs due to medical negligence committed by the hospital, obstetrician, doctor, or nurse, happiness can turn into devastation. Families that experience this tragic turn of events need support as they grieve their loss. Part of this support can involve them taking legal action against the parties responsible for their baby’s injuries with the help of a Miami birth injury lawyer.

If your child suffered a birth injury because of a medical mistake, Freidin Brown, P.A. can put our 100+ years of combined experience to work and help you hold the responsible person accountable. In doing so, our attorneys can seek the compensation you will need to provide continuing care, rehabilitation, and any other medical services made necessary by the injury.

Fill out our online contact form or call us today to learn more about your rights after a birth injury in Florida.

Miami Birth Injury Lawyers With the Time and Resources to Dedicate to Your Case

For decades, our Miami personal injury lawyers have helped Florida residents get through some of the toughest injuries and losses they’ve had to face. Your story matters to us, and we want to help you however we can. When we bring you on as our client, you become family. We listen to your story as we build your case for damages and compensation. 

Freidin Brown, P.A. takes your child’s injuries seriously and we will fight for your recovery inside or outside of the courtroom. Our job is to stop wrongdoers from causing pain and suffering through negligence. Because we are a smaller law firm, we can use all our resources for your benefit and offer personalized attention and care that allows us to explore your case thoroughly.

Our founder, Philip Freidin, opened our Miami firm just a few years after graduating from law school in the 1970s. Since then, Phil, who is Board Certified in Civil Trials by the Florida Bar, has made it his lifelong mission to offer professional legal representation for people who suffered injuries from wrongful acts that others caused.

Our Miami birth injury lawyers can help you understand your right to lifetime benefits for your son or daughter from the professional who caused his or her injury. Dealing with birth injuries is challenging, but as you process this overwhelming situation, we will demand the answers you deserve to have and hold every entity responsible for the harm your newborn endured.

Our Miami Birth Injury Lawyers Have Recovered Millions for Families

At Freidin Brown, P.A., our Miami medical malpractice lawyers understand that a birth injury is a life-changing event for your child and your family. We also understand that those first days, weeks, or months following serious birth trauma can be stressful, frightening, and frustrating all at the same time.

Our attorneys work diligently to recover the compensation that helps clients manage the expenses of a birth injury. We have recovered millions of dollars for injured clients. Our case results include:

• $4,625,000 jury verdict for a child with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) who was rendered blind because of a hospital neonatology group’s medical malpractice
• $38 million verdict (with co-counsel) for twin boys who suffered blindness due to a doctor’s malpractice after they were born prematurely. If the doctor had properly screened and diagnosed them, their sight could have been saved
• $3 million settlement after a woman suffered fatal injuries after childbirth

What to Expect When You Choose Our Miami Birth Injury Attorneys

Our team can handle any medical malpractice birth injury case in the Miami area. When you hire us, you immediately have access to:

• Selectively chosen attorneys with 100-plus years of combined legal experience.
• Two board-certified attorneys who have tried more than 300 cases in front of a jury
• Legal representation tailored to your needs
• Lawyers and staff members who speak fluent Spanish and Portuguese

We have developed a reputation for achieving positive results in medical malpractice cases, holding doctors responsible, getting families the money they need, and working to improve the healthcare system for everyone.

If Our Miami Birth Injury Lawyers Don’t Win, You Don’t Owe Us a Dime

We don’t want you to worry about having the money to pay us upfront fees or costs. This concern stops many people from seeking legal help, but we encourage you to reach out to us now. We work on contingency, which means we can work on your entire case without requiring you to pay us a penny out of your pocket. Instead, we receive payment only if you win your case. You won’t have to pay us anything if you don’t receive a monetary award or settlement.

Contingency agreements allow us to start promptly on your case. It is a greater cost to you not to seek legal representation that can help you hold liable parties accountable. Getting started is important because personal injury cases are on a timer the minute they happen.

HB 837 generally sets a two-year deadline on injury cases. This deadline starts when parties discover or reasonably should have discovered the injury. Once we learn more about your situation, we can advise you on the applicable timelines and deadlines. We also will file your case for you, which is one less thing to worry about.

Damages You Can Recover in a Miami Birth Injury Case

While it is hard to predict the outcomes, birth injuries often bring steep medical expenses that are hard to pay. Our Miami birth injury lawyers can help you recover damages for the injuries your child has, such as the following:

• Pain and suffering
• Emotional trauma
• Medical expenses (e.g., CT scans, MRIs, and X-rays, surgeries, medications, medical equipment)
• Rehabilitation costs
• In-home care expenses
• Speech therapy
• Physical and occupational therapy
• Psychiatric support
• Lost income and benefits

We will evaluate your financial and non-financial losses before determining how much we can pursue from the liable party.

Birth Injury Wrongful Death Damages

If your baby passed away after care from someone in a Miami-area facility or hospital, please accept our sincere condolences. We are here to support you and can help you consider if you can file a wrongful death lawsuit.

Our Miami wrongful death attorneys can explain how the damages recovered from these legal actions could help reimburse you for medical expenses, funeral and burial fees, and other related losses.

Medical Mistakes, Doctor Negligence, and Nurse Malpractice in Miami Birth Injury Claims

Six to eight of every 1,000 newborn babies will suffer a birth injury. Of those, experts estimate that about one-half could be avoided through the recognition of risk factors during labor and taking appropriate steps to limit the impact of birth trauma.

You should be able to trust your birthing team to look out for your health and the health of your newborn when you begin labor and delivery. While some birth injuries may simply be the result of being born, others may be caused or made worse by the action or inaction of your doctor, your nurse, or the hospital where you are delivering.

Medical mistakes or doctor negligence that can cause serious, permanent injury to your newborn include:

• Failing to recognize a high-risk pregnancy or anticipate complications related to labor and delivery
• Failing to monitor your baby’s fetal heart rate (FHR) or recognize signs of fetal distress
• Delaying a medically necessary Cesarean section (C-section)
• Misusing forceps or a vacuum extractor during delivery
• Inducing labor through inappropriate use of Pitocin
• Failing to detect umbilical cord complications such as prolapse
• Failing to screen for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP)

Your medical team is responsible for providing a safe environment for mothers and babies before, during, and after childbirth. Complications that affect the life and health of the mother, such as infection, prolonged bleeding, and improper use of anesthetics or epidurals, may also give rise to medical malpractice or, in the worst situations, wrongful death lawsuits.

Who Can You Sue in a Miami Birth Injury Claim?

Some injuries to newborns during childbirth are simply the result of the birthing process; others are not. Those caused by a medical mistake or the negligence of your birthing team are preventable.

Taking steps to hold the doctor, nurse, midwife, or hospital accountable for your child’s injury can help you secure the financial resources needed to provide for your son or daughter, as well as keep another family from experiencing the same kind of trauma.

It takes an experienced Miami birth injury attorney to know who to sue in a lawsuit. Hospitals are made up of complex corporate structures, and doctors and nurses are often employed by entities other than the hospital. Getting to the bottom of the corporate entities and their insurance policies is key to a successful recovery.

Who Can Be Held Responsible for a Newborn Birth Injury in Miami?

A typical labor and delivery process involves many healthcare professionals. A mistake made by any of them could have lifelong consequences for your child. If your newborn suffered a serious injury during birth that resulted from medical malpractice or negligence, you may have a legal claim against:

• Your doctor, including your obstetrician or the doctor who delivered your baby
• The nurse(s) who assisted with your childbirth
• The anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist who prepared your epidural
• The hospital or clinic where you delivered
• The midwife who delivered your baby
• The pharmacy or pharmacist who gave the wrong dose of medication
• The manufacturer of a defective fetal heart rate monitor or another device that malfunctioned during childbirth
• The drug company that designed and distributed a defective drug used during childbirth

It’s not uncommon to be unaware of something that went wrong during childbirth that is now causing your child to suffer. In fact, many families don’t make this connection until many years later when their children display signs of brain damage or other trauma.

Our Miami Birth Injury Lawyers Will Investigate Your Claim

At Freidin Brown, P.A., our lawyers do not expect you to have all the answers. That is where we come in. Our Miami birth injury attorneys can request medical records, investigate your childbirth process, and get to the root cause of your child’s birth injury. We will then advise you about your legal options in pursuing a birth injury lawsuit against the responsible party.

We will investigate what caused your child’s injury and document the events that occurred before, during, and after the injury. We will also collect evidence to show how medical negligence occurred and handle communications and negotiations with insurers. If we cannot settle your case outside of court, we don’t shy away from going  to trial.

Birth Injuries That Can Form the Basis of a Claim in Miami

Birth injury or birth trauma is referred to as any damage, injury, or death an infant sustains before, during, and sometimes after the birth. Emergencies can also arise that threaten the life and health of the birth mother. When this happens, it can result in a birth injury claim in Miami.

Thousands of cases of birth injuries occur every year in the United States. While some injuries are simply the result of the natural birthing process and will heal on their own within a few days or weeks, birth injuries that are caused by the negligence of a medical professional can have long-lasting effects which may prevent your child from living a full, happy life.

Types of Birth Injuries

Birth injuries range in severity and include:

• Brachial Plexus
• Brain Cooling Injury
• Breech Birth Injury
• Cephalohematoma
• Cerebral Palsy
• Erb’s Palsy
• Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy
• Infant Medication Error
• Labor & Delivery Complications
• Life Care Planning
• Pediatric Stroke
• Preeclampsia
• Retinal Detachment
• Retinopathy Of Prematurity (ROP)
• Shoulder Dystocia
• Umbilical Cord Complications
• Vacuum Extraction

Common causes of infant injuries include pulling or twisting on the baby’s head or arm during delivery, improper use of forceps or a vacuum to aid delivery, delaying an emergency C-section, and failing to recognize signs of distress in the mother or the unborn baby.

Birth injuries caused by medical malpractice can quickly become very complex legal cases. Your child’s future may rest on the outcome of a birth injury lawsuit in terms of providing the financial resources to cover medical expenses, therapy, rehabilitation, medical equipment, and even in-home care made necessary by a doctor’s mistake.

Birth trauma and serious birth injuries come in a variety of forms. When a medical mistake or hospital negligence is to blame for your son’s or daughter’s injuries, the scope of the trauma may depend on what your doctor, nurse, or another member of your birthing team did wrong.

What Makes Some Pregnancies High Risk

Some pregnancies are higher risk than others, and a birth injury may be more likely if:

• The baby is large.
• The mother’s pelvis is small relative to the size of the baby’s head.
• The baby is born prematurely.
• The mother’s labor was difficult or prolonged.
• The baby is born in a breech position.
• The mother is expecting twins, triplets, etc.

Common Labor & Delivery Mistakes That May Lead to a Miami Birth Injury Claim

Birth injuries that are caused by a medical mistake are preventable. If your baby was injured during birth, a medical professional who failed to recognize signs of fetal distress may be responsible for injuries to your child caused by:

• Labor and delivery complications
• Umbilical cord complications
• Infant medication errors
• Pediatric stroke
• A delayed Cesarean section
• Oxygen deprivation
• Placenta previa or placental abruption

Doctors, nurses, and hospitals who provide childbirth services can be held responsible with the help of a Miami birth injury attorney when their actions or inactions amount to medical negligence and result in a birth injury to your infant. Informed healthcare professionals are also expected to properly diagnose and treat any issues that may arise during pregnancy and after childbirth.

Signs and Symptoms of Birth Injuries in Infants and Mothers

Injuries typically result when something goes wrong during or shortly after labor and delivery. Often, birth injuries are the result of a negligent birthing team or medical malpractice by your delivery doctor.

Signs your newborn may be suffering from a birth injury:

• Newborn is unresponsive to typical stimuli
• Odd or unexplained bruises
• Deformity
• Poor muscle control or spastic movements
• Immobility in the arm, leg, or any part of the body
• Newborn is delayed in reaching common developmental milestones, such as crawling or sitting up

Some signs of birth injury are very difficult to identify. In some cases, parents may not recognize the signs and symptoms of birth injury until later stages in the child’s development, e.g., during school preparedness testing, etc.

Newborn Brain Injuries

Of the possible injuries that can occur during childbirth, brain injuries tend to be the most severe. After spending months hoping for a healthy child, learning your newborn suffered brain damage because of a medical mistake can be devastating. Knowing the injury and the lifelong consequences could have been prevented only make matters worse.

Understanding the signs and symptoms of brain damage in infants or learning how to recognize symptoms of cerebral palsy in a newborn may be the last thing on your mind going into the delivery room. After you have left the hospital and have questions about whether your baby is developing properly. However, if your baby could not breathe at birth or required resuscitation, experienced seizures, had a shrill cry, or was kept in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) well after your stay, a brain injury may have occurred during birth.

If your child was diagnosed with a birth injury such as cerebral palsy, Erb’s palsy, or a brachial plexus injury, consult a lawyer to discuss obtaining the financial assistance you’ll need to provide the lifetime of care your child will require. When a medical mistake causes serious, permanent injury, a medical malpractice lawsuit may be your best option to keep the same mistake from causing injury to another innocent newborn.

Common Injuries to Birth Mothers

If a mother sustains injuries during childbirth, the consequences can be life altering and create a demand for a lifetime of medical assistance and treatment. Below is a list of the most common birth injuries to mothers:

• Vaginal tears
• Fissures
• Incorrect stitching following a Caesarean section or an episiotomy
• Failure to manage infections such as pre-eclampsia
• Postpartum hemorrhage
• Injuries from forceps and other tools
• Placental abruption

How to Cope With a Newborn Birth Injury

Whether your child was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a brachial plexus injury, or Erb’s palsy, or suffered severe brain damage during childbirth, you are not alone. Other parents in Miami and throughout Florida and the United States are helping their children live full lives despite their birth injuries, and there are organizations that offer financial assistance, counseling, and respite care.

Depending on the injury your newborn suffered, he or she may require rehabilitative therapy, including physical, occupational, and speech therapy; additional financial resources may be required to provide for those needs.

State and federal benefit programs are available to help offset expenses related to a birth injury, such as:

• Medicaid
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
• Public grant programs

A birth injury affects the whole family. Becoming a primary caregiver to a child with special needs can be exhausting and overwhelming. Seeking out others in similar situations—such as finding a local support group or an online support group for parents of children with similar injuries—may be helpful.

Sitting down with your family and discussing the changes and day-to-day struggles and triumphs that each person experiences may help lessen the stress of caring for a special-needs child. You may also want to seek out the guidance of a Miami birth injury lawyer who can tell you more about legal options that can give you the resources to take some of the pressures off of you and your family.

Siblings of special-needs children need to feel important as well. Brothers and sisters may experience ridicule from their peers because of the actions or behaviors of the child with a birth injury. It is often easy to focus so much energy on the child who needs your constant attention that other children may feel left out.

Coping with a Birth Injury May Not Be Easy, But It Is Not Impossible

Every family is different, and each person within that family is different. We all deal with stress and unexpected change in our own way. When you first discover that your newborn was injured during childbirth, you may feel angry, scared, worried, and a host of other emotions. You can do this, and there is plenty of help available.

Injuries newborns suffer are difficult experiences for families, especially when they have reason to believe those injuries – like many birth injuries – are the result of negligent medical care. Because preventable birth injuries could and should be avoided by reasonably skillful and careful medical professionals, families have a right to explore their options for legal action that can hold healthcare providers accountable for their negligence and allow them to secure the justice and compensation they deserve.

Consisting of award-winning trial lawyers who serve clients across Florida, Freidin Brown, P.A. has successfully advocated for families who have been forced to deal with the life-altering consequences of birth injuries. Over the years, we have used our more than 100 years of combined experience to help clients navigate challenging personal injury and medical malpractice cases and have recovered millions of dollars in compensation on their behalf.

Miami Birth Injury FAQs

While our Miami birth injury law firm is available 24/7 to help families that want to learn more about their rights and our services, we also know how important it is that victims have the facts they need when they are just beginning to explore their options. That’s why we have taken the time to answer some of the most common birth injury questions we receive below.

What Is a Birth Injury?

Birth injuries refer to any injuries sustained by newborns (or mothers) during labor, delivery, and in some cases, pregnancy, and they can range in severity from minor injuries that heal over time to lasting impairments, lifelong disabilities, and injuries that result in death. While some birth injuries are not preventable, many can be avoided if not for the negligence of doctors, nurses, or other healthcare professionals who fail to meet their duty of care.

What Are Some Examples of Birth Injuries?

There are numerous types of birth injuries, including many that comprise the basis of birth injury lawsuits filed by victims and families. Common examples include:

• Cerebral palsy
• Bone fractures
• Facial lacerations or paralysis
• Brain damage
• Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy
• Preeclampsia and eclampsia
• Injuries caused by forceps or vacuums
• C-section injuries (including delayed C-section injuries)
• Brachial plexus injuries (Erb’s palsy)
• Shoulder dystocia
• Stroke

Many of these injuries can be caused by negligent medical care, including cases of a doctor’s failure to identify or monitor serious complications, negligent use of forceps or vacuum extractors, failure to perform a timely C-section, improper use of labor-inducing drugs (including Pitocin), and other forms of substandard care.

Are Birth Defects the Same as Birth Injuries?

No, birth defects are distinctly different from birth injuries in that they are present before birth (congenital). Often, birth defects result from genetic abnormalities (including those without medical explanation), which means families don’t typically have valid claims for compensation.

However, there are some cases where birth defects may have been caused by the negligence of others, particularly in cases involving exposure to harmful substances caused by dangerous drugs or harmful materials. Those cases, unlike birth injury cases, generally focus largely on product liability laws rather than medical malpractice.

What Are the Signs of Birth Injury?

Various injuries can occur during the birth of your child. From bruising to broken bones, from severe brain damage to stillbirth, many things can go wrong during labor and delivery and result in lifelong struggles for your newborn and your family.

Not all birth injuries rise to the level of medical malpractice or negligence. If you believe a medical mistake may be to blame for your child’s injuries, our Miami birth injury lawyers would be happy to discuss your legal options during a complimentary consultation.

Do I Have a Valid Birth Injury Case?

Whether you have a case can be difficult to determine on your own. While every case is unique and dependent upon the individual circumstances and set of facts involved, families generally have the right to pursue a birth injury case against the responsible healthcare providers if it can be shown that birth injuries were caused by substandard care provided by a doctor, nurse, or some other healthcare professional who treated patients during pregnancy, labor, or delivery.

Substandard care usually arises from negligence, which is a medical professional’s failure to provide treatment or care that any other careful medical professional in the same or similar situation would have provided. Understanding negligence and whether the conduct of medical professionals in your case rises to that standard is a matter best evaluated by lawyers who regularly handle medical malpractice cases.

What Will a Successful Miami Birth Injury Lawsuit Provide?

Successful birth injury lawsuits are important for several reasons. First and foremost, they hold negligent healthcare providers accountable for negligent and careless acts that cause harm and can help ensure those types of mistakes are avoided in the future through the changes hospitals and other providers often enact after lawsuits.

They are also critical to providing families with a sense of justice and providing financial compensation for their damages – including their economic damages (for things like medical expenses, lost income, and future medical or financial needs) and non-economic damages (which cover intangible losses and emotional injuries such as pain and suffering, mental anguish, and more).

Because the outcome of a birth injury lawsuit is so important to families and their futures, working with proven Miami birth injury attorneys becomes crucially important.

Do I Need a Lawyer for My Miami Birth Injury Case?

There are no laws requiring you to have legal representation when bringing a birth injury lawsuit, but working with a lawyer can protect your rights and put yourself in the best position to maximize the outcome.

Birth injury and medical malpractice lawsuits are known for being challenging legal cases, as they involve complex laws and very technical medical information that requires investigation, medical expert collaboration, and extensive experience to effectively build. These cases are also very expensive since you must have medical experts testifying in support of your case.

By working with the birth injury lawyers at Freidin Brown, P.A., you will benefit from caring and compassionate advocates who truly care about your future and making you whole. We have the required experience, resources, and connections for these matters and can take care of everything from start to finish.

We put up all the costs and expenses of litigating your claim – and we are only reimbursed if we obtain a recovery for you. Our lawyers have a proven record in birth injury cases and are prepared to put our insight to work for you.

Our Miami Birth Injury Lawyers Are Ready to Fight for Your Child’s Future

At Freidin Brown, P.A., our Miami birth injury lawyers are dedicated to pursuing the compensation your family needs to adjust to a life created by a preventable birth injury. When medical malpractice or negligence leads to a serious, permanent injury to your newborn son or daughter, we can help you obtain the compensation you need to provide for your child.

After a birth injury takes part of the joy away from your child’s birthday, the lawsuit may or may not be the last thing on your mind. Our lawyers will take care of the legal matters while you focus on your family. Reach out to us online to schedule your free consultation or call us today to get started.