Medical Negligence Claims

Birth Injury and Cerebral Palsy compensation claims

If you or your baby has suffered an injury during childbirth and someone has been negligent, you may be able to make a medical negligence compensation claim.

Birth injury is when a baby is injured before, during or shortly after birth. Tens of thousands of healthy babies are delivered in the UK every year. Unfortunately, over 3% of babies suffer some form of birth injury, which makes this area one of the most common for pursuing medical negligence compensation claims.

Birth injury is more common during induced delivery, as opposed to spontaneous delivery. The main problems that occur fall into two areas:

• Mechanical trauma - when the baby is in an unusual position or is too large to pass through the birth canal easily
• Oxygen deprivation – this can give rise to a number of long term medical conditions

Common birth injury claims

• Cerebral Palsy – this is caused by the baby being starved of oxygen during birth, causing damage to the brain. This often causes long term physical and mental difficulties for the child.
• Umbilical cord problems
• Broken collar bone
• Ruptured placentas
• Hip Dysplasia
• Hypoglycaemia
• Shoulder Dystocia
• Erbs Palsy and other brachial plexus injuries
• Infant death / stillbirth
• Injuries to the mother during child birth
• Failure to carry out emergency caesarean section which could prevent birth injuries

Babies who suffer birth injuries will often need expensive long term care. This may involve the parents being unable to resume work so that they can care for the child, special equipment required to adapt the child’s home and additional nursing and medical care.

Birth injury compensation claims are complex and require specialist legal advice. We have specialist medical negligence experts who will advise you on your claim and guide you through the process from start to finish. Our solicitors are recognised as experts in the field and we are on the Law Society’s panel for clinical negligence.

Most children will qualify for legal aid as it is their income that is assessed and not that of the parents. Graysons are one of only a handful of solicitors in South Yorkshire, and the only one in North Derbyshire, who have been awarded a legal aid franchise for medical negligence claims.

What can I claim?

The value of your claim will depend on a number of factors including:

• The nature of the injury or illness
• Whether your child (or you) recover fully from the injury or illness or if it has a long term effect on their health and wellbeing
• The amount of any losses you incur as a result of the injury

You can claim compensation for the following things if they are a result of your injury:

• Pain, suffering and loss of amenity
• Loss of earnings
• Medical and nursing care costs
• Special equipment needed to carry out daily activities and any costs involved in adapting your home
• Other expenses incurred as a result of your injury, for example, travel expenses incurred whilst receiving medical treatment.

Contact us to speak to one of our specialist lawyers in total confidence and they will discuss the details of your claim.