Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers
HIE Birth Injury Attorneys in Illinois
When new parents meet their newborn for the first time, they see an entire lifetime of potential. But no parent can possibly prepare for a child’s life-changing disabilities that follow brain damage at birth.
Over 125,000 babies will be born each year in Illinois. Most of these newborns will enter this world perfectly happy and healthy. But some of these children will unfortunately suffer from birth injuries that will permanently affect their way of life.
A hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) diagnosis at birth is one type of injury that can have these effects. Children with moderate to severe HIE often experience developmental delays, intellectual disabilities, hearing and vision impairments, and other limitations. They can even develop long-term conditions like epilepsy or cerebral palsy.
A baby’s brain is vulnerable to injury when they lose access to oxygen during labor. Fetal hypoxia can happen for a myriad of reasons, with some being unavoidable consequences of the delivery process. However, a child’s risk for hypoxic injuries like HIE increase dramatically when medical professionals make negligent delivery room errors.
Missing complications, using improper medications, or needlessly delaying intervention are just a few critical errors that can cause HIE injuries. If you think medical malpractice played a role in your child’s diagnosis, contact an Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyer today.
Talk to an Experienced HIE Injury Lawyer Today
No parent should ever have to experience the heartbreaking realities of irreversible HIE brain damage. But working with an Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyer can secure financial compensation to afford more opportunities for these children.
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Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers
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For over four decades, our nationally recognized birth injury team has been holding negligent medical providers accountable for their mistakes. We have a respected reputation of securing large settlement sums and trial verdicts for medical malpractice victims across the nation.
We pride ourselves on having a vast, in-house network of professionals lending their expertise to every case. Most medical malpractice firms employ one or two experienced nurses for consulting. Our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers work alongside an entire nursing and medical research team.
Every client we represent receives a dedicated team of attorneys, nursing staff, nursing advocates, and medical experts to their case. Your team is available to answer your legal and medical questions and provide important case updates as they come.
But our help goes past the courtroom: we can also assist your family with the day-to-day needs as litigation progresses. This includes scheduling specialists’ appointments, obtaining important medical documents, providing transportation and lodging, and more.
Our firm offers help to our clients on a contingency fee basis. This means we never charge families upfront until after we win their case and secure compensation.
When we win, we will only charge a pre-agreed percentage fee outlined in an attorney-client retainer contract. We never charge for cases we don’t win; our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers only receive payment after you do.
We are proud to have a long history of legal victories that speaks for itself.
Recent HIE Birth Injury Settlement:
Our nationwide firm’s dedicated nursing and medical research division has secured over $1 billion for families of birth injured children. This includes a recent $13.75 million verdict for the family of an HIE brain injury baby.
After nurses and physicians failed to properly monitor her vitals, a mother's blood pressure dropped to dangerous levels during delivery. This restricted her baby’s oxygen supply, triggering an HIE event that led to severe neonatal seizures. Even after medical professionals provided neonatal resuscitation to save the baby’s life, permanent brain damage had already set in. Our team of Illinois HIE birth injury lawyers recovered $13,750,000 to help the family with future medical expenses and developmental therapy.
What is an HIE Birth Injury?
HIE stands for hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, a type of permanent brain damage at birth. It occurs when the baby’s brain experiences a deficiency in oxygen and blood flow during birth. To break down the condition further:
- Hypoxic means hypoxia, or having insufficient oxygen in the tissues (specifically the brain tissues, in this case).
- Ischemic means ischemia, or having insufficient blood flow to a body part (specifically to the brain, in this case). Babies who undergo ischemia will almost certainly experience hypoxia at the same time because oxygen travels primarily through the blood.
- Encephalopathy is a general term relating to damage, disease, or injury to the brain.
HIE birth injuries are the leading cause of cerebral palsy, a group of neurological conditions affecting a child’s muscle movement. In addition, newborn HIE injuries are still one of the leading causes of neonatal mortality and morbidity worldwide.
How Common are HIE Birth Injuries in Illinois?
Even as the most common type of neonatal brain injury, very few babies will suffer from HIE injuries at birth. The most recent estimates suggest that HIE incidence in the United States is around 1.7 in every 1000 births. Based on Illinois birth rate data, we can estimate around 212 newborns in Illinois develop HIE each year.
How Do HIE Brain Injuries Develop?
A newborn’s HIE brain injury does not end after the initial dip in oxygenated blood flow. Even after oxygen returns to baby, they can still experience irreparable harm. Here is the timeline for how this type of brain damage at birth actually occurs:
Stage 1: Hypoxic-Ischemic Insult
Hypoxic-Ischemic Event: The damage begins whenever a complication stops the flow of oxygenated blood to the baby’s brain. This can happen either very quickly (acute profound hypoxic event) or slowly over time (partial prolonged hypoxic event). Acute and prolonged hypoxia can both cause great injury to the baby’s brain, just at different speeds.
Cellular Shutdown & Initial Injury: The baby’s brain cells begin shutting down after not receiving enough oxygen for long enough. This rapid cell death sparks major inflammation and swelling within the brain tissue. Lesions (spots of damaged tissue visible on an MRI scan) begin forming on the baby’s basal ganglia and thalamus.
Stage 2: Oxygen Reperfusion Injury
0-6 Hours After Injury: Upon birth, the baby switches from placental oxygen flow to breathing with their own lungs. This allows for oxygenated blood to resume flowing to the brain. Doctors refer to this period the latent phase, or the small recovery window where therapeutic interventions can be most effective. Namely, therapeutic hypothermia has the strongest medical backing for reducing excess brain swelling during this period.
Oxygen Reperfusion & Secondary Injury: As oxygen returns to the brain, the body mistakes the excess inflammation for infection. In response, the baby’s immune system releases high levels of toxins (called free radicals or reactive oxygen species).
These toxins circulate through the brain tissue in search of infection but instead end up damaging surrounding brain cells. Researchers believe this second wave of injury (oxygen reperfusion injury) can actually be more damaging than the initial hypoxic-ischemic insult.
What Causes a Newborn’s HIE Brain Injury?
Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy damage can only occur as a result of insufficient oxygen and blood flow to the brain.
Even before birth, humans depend on oxygen to produce energy. Our brains are by far the largest oxygen consumers, requiring over one fifth of the body’s total energy by adulthood. However, the brain consumes even more energy during fetal development, making steady oxygen flow even more crucial for babies.
Without this steady flow of oxygenated blood, the baby’s brain cells cannot function properly and will start to shut down. Unlike other cells in the body, brain cells do not easily regenerate. This is why widespread brain cell damage at birth can have lasting impacts throughout childhood and even into adulthood.
Doctors, nurses, and all other medical professionals in the delivery room must carefully watch for signs of fetal oxygen deprivation. Even short periods without oxygen can permanently impair brain function.
What Are Potential Risk Factors for an HIE Birth Injury?
Hypoxia and ischemia may be the direct causes of HIE, but what causes these two complications in the first place?
A baby can lose access to airflow and blood flow for many different reasons. Not all of these complications will guarantee an HIE injury at birth, but they can absolutely increase the baby’s risk.
The following complications are risk factors our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers have seen directly contribute to an HIE diagnosis:
Placenta Complications
Before the baby breathes through their lungs, they receive oxygen in the womb from their mother’s placenta. Complications to the placenta during pregnancy or labor can block sufficient oxygenated blood flow from reaching the baby. Prolonged blockages will increase the baby’s risk for experiencing hypoxia or ischemia.
Issues with the Umbilical Cord
During pregnancy, the placenta sends oxygenated blood and nutrients to the baby through a thin tube called the umbilical cord. Knots, kinks, or cord compression can block these critical nutrients from ever reaching the baby’s brain. In severe cases, this blockage can result in neonatal ischemia and hypoxia and increase the risk for an HIE injury.
If doctors cannot quickly fix an umbilical cord problem, an emergency C-section may be necessary to avoid severe perinatal asphyxiation.
Blood Pressure Abnormalities During Pregnancy
During pregnancy, the mother’s body increases its blood volume by almost 50% to support placental blood flow. As a result, her heart pumps harder. This can cause strain and make the mother vulnerable to developing hypertensive disorders like preeclampsia during pregnancy.
Preeclampsia is a condition causing high blood pressure and narrowing of the mother’s blood vessels. Without proper monitoring and intervention, it can dangerously restrict placental blood flow and increase the baby’s risk for ischemia.
According to 2024 data, around 12 percent of Illinois mothers experienced hypertension during pregnancy.
Maternal Blood Clots
To prepare for blood loss during delivery, the mother’s body creates higher levels of blood-clotting proteins like fibrinogen and proconvertin. This, alongside additional factors like increased pressure on the pelvic veins, will increase her risk for forming blood clots.
Blood clots (especially within the placenta) can block oxygenated blood from travelling to the baby. This will put them at a higher risk for hypoxia and ischemia which can lead to HIE brain damage.
Maternal Infections
If a mother has present infections in her system, she can easily transfer it to the baby.
Contracting a fetal or neonatal infection like group b strep or chorioamnionitis can easily trigger widespread bodily inflammation. This inflammation will interfere with oxygen delivery to the baby’s brain, increasing their chances of experiencing hypoxia or ischemia.
Additionally, infections often result in fever. A higher internal temperature increases oxygen demand and lowers the baby’s tolerance to labor, increasing their risk for oxygen deprivation.
Prolonged or Arrested Labor
Labor contractions will naturally constrict placental blood and oxygen flow as the uterus pushes the baby out. This process is natural; the baby typically restores their oxygen reserves in between contractions as the placenta “recharges.”
But labor surpassing 18 hours or stopping altogether can become dangerous. The longer the baby remains in this state of stress, the more likely they will experience dangerous oxygen deprivation. Medical professionals should intervene when labor fails to progress to save the child from increased risks of HIE brain injuries.
Labor Inducing Medications
Doctors may deem it necessary to prescribe labor inducing medications when the mother’s delivery stalls or fails to start. But medications like Pitocin and Cytotec can induce too strong of contractions that tightly constrict placental blood flow.
Too high of a dosage can cause labor contractions which are too frequent and overly powerful. This labor complication (called uterine hyperstimulation) can leave the baby without time to restore their oxygen supply in between contractions. This can increase their risk of blood and oxygen deprivation that leads to permanent HIE damage.
Uterine Rupture
A uterine rupture is a life-threatening labor and delivery complication where the mother’s uterine lining begins to split open. This can sever the connection between the baby and the placenta, abruptly cutting off all oxygen flow during labor. A uterine rupture will greatly increase a baby’s risk for HIE injuries and a mother’s risk for mortality.
Shoulder Dystocia
Shoulder dystocia happens when the baby’s head exits the birth canal, but their shoulders remain lodged inside. The longer their shoulders remain lodged behind the mother’s pubic bone, the greater their risk is for birth asphyxia. Prolonged cases of shoulder dystocia can cut off blood circulation to the baby’s head and potentially cause HIE damage.
Head Injuries at Birth
Newborn head injuries can cause trauma to their growing brain tissue. This results in inflammation restricting essential blood flow to their brain. If severe enough, birth trauma to the head can disrupt cerebral perfusion enough to cause HIE brain injuries.
Head injuries that can inflict this kind of permanent damage include skull fractures, intracranial hemorrhages, or cephalohematoma. These injuries happen more often during difficult deliveries or when medical professionals misuse delivery instruments like forceps and vacuum extractors.
Premature Birth
A premature birth usually does not give a baby’s internal organs enough time to fully develop. Underdeveloped brains and/or blood vessels will make a baby less capable of managing restricted oxygen flow. This will increase their vulnerability to brain injuries like HIE if they experience a hypoxic-ischemic event during labor.
Doctors and delivery nurses can lower a baby’s risk by taking preventative action and quickly intervening when labor complications occur. This starts with proper identification of potential risks during prenatal testing and conducting continued monitoring up until delivery. When they fail to manage risk factors, our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers can hold them accountable.
What Are HIE Birth Injury Symptoms?
Signs of oxygen deprivation can appear even before the baby leaves their mother’s womb. During cases, our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers will search for evidence of the following symptoms of HIE:
Abnormal Fetal Heart Rate Patterns
Non-reassuring fetal heart rates during labor are usually the first indication that the baby has suffered from a hypoxic-ischemic event. This is because there is a direct connection between fetal heart rate patterns and the baby’s oxygen supply.
Patterns that should immediately alert medical professionals to a potential problem include:
- Late heart rate decelerations after a contraction
- Minimal to no change (variability) in heart rate over several minutes
- Baseline heart rates under 100 beats per minute (suggesting fetal bradycardia)
- Baseline heart rates over 160 beats per minute (suggesting fetal tachycardia)
Doctors and nurses must carefully monitor the baby’s heartbeat to know when intervention is necessary. Intervening can range from adjusting the mother’s position and providing additional fluids to performing an emergency c-section delivery.
Seizures at Birth
Prolonged hypoxia and ischemia can trigger abnormal electrical signals in the brain, which causes neurons to fire uncontrollably. Because neurons direct muscle movement, this attack can result in uncontrollable convulsions, rhythmic eye movements, and pauses in breathing.
Neonatal seizures can be life-threatening and require quick administration of medications and further monitoring in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Neonatal Metabolic Acidosis
A decrease in oxygen causes the baby’s cells to produce excess lactic acid when producing energy. Over time, lactic acid buildup will cause the baby’s blood pH to drop to dangerously acidic levels.
A blood pH below 7.20 at birth almost always indicates that the baby underwent oxygen deprivation during labor. Research supports severe fetal acidosis being a key symptom of HIE injuries in neonates.
Weak Appearance at Birth
Doctors and delivery nurses must closely examine the baby’s physical characteristics upon delivery. Important signs of an HIE injury or other brain damage at birth may look like:
- Shallow breathing or absent breathing requiring neonatal resuscitation
- Irregular pulse (fetal bradycardia or tachycardia)
- Blueish tint around the lips or face, indicating oxygen deprivation
- Little to no movement
- Poor reflexes
- Floppy, weak muscle tone (hypotonia)
- Arched back
A newborn who has two or more of these signs may have a brain injury like HIE. Or they may have another complication that warrants further attention. Either way, medical professionals must not ignore these signs as they can indicate a severe birth complication.
Doctors and delivery nurses are working with a very small window of opportunity to treat a HIE brain injury baby. Ignoring obvious signals of a hypoxic-ischemic event can delay timely diagnosis, which stops the potential to reduce its effects. An Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyer can help identify when delayed action caused or worsened your child’s HIE brain damage.
How do Doctors Diagnose a Baby’s HIE Birth Injury?
Even with clear symptoms of HIE, doctors and nurse practitioners must rely on standardized exams and tools to diagnose it. Using a combination of the following assessments can help reliably predict when a baby has sustained significant HIE brain damage:
APGAR Scores
APGAR is an acronym for five important physical characteristics at birth: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration. Medical professionals will assess these qualities and assign a score for each one ranging from 0-2.
Everyone receives an APGAR score at birth to evaluate whether they need further medical intervention. Babies with HIE birth injuries will usually score low in all APGAR categories, particularly in the respiration and pulse sections. Doctors often use the APGAR score as a benchmark for determining whether the baby needs further testing for brain damage.
Sarnat Exam Staging
Like the APGAR test, the Sarnat exam has healthcare providers measuring specific neonatal characteristics. However, these categories are more aligned with symptoms of HIE, such as neuromuscular control levels and the presence of seizures.
What Are the Stages of HIE?
The Sarnat scale classifies a baby’s HIE birth injury into three stages of severity based on the clinical provider’s observations:
- Stage I (Mild): the HIE injury has caused minimal damage that likely won’t cause long-term complications or severe cognitive impairment.
- Stage II (Moderate): the HIE injury is significant and will require further intervention like neonatal cooling therapy. Long-term complications are possible but not a guarantee.
- Stage III (Severe): the HIE injury is substantial and will critically impair the child’s capabilities in life. Immediate intervention is absolutely critical to minimize the injury’s future impact.
Umbilical Cord Blood Gas Testing
Low pH balance in newborn umbilical cord blood can reveal when they underwent hypoxia and subsequent fetal acidosis during labor.
An umbilical cord blood gas test can measure the pH level and base deficit within the baby’s blood. Low pH levels and high base deficits indicate that the baby did not receive enough oxygen during delivery.
Results with a pH below 7.18 should push medical professionals to conduct further testing for brain injuries.
HIE Brain Imaging Scans
Neuroimaging scans are the most definitive method for diagnosing HIE birth injuries because they reveal symptoms that are otherwise invisible.
The most common neonatal brain imaging test is Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanning. These tests are highly accurate and are completely non-invasive for the baby.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) testing is another critical test that measures the brain’s electrical activity. It can help healthcare providers detect abnormal signals and patterns that align with brain damage.
When used together, these tests help medical professionals determine the precise location and severity of a baby’s HIE injury.
Timing is critical when diagnosing an HIE brain injury baby. Missing the signs of a potential hypoxic-ischemic event can delay treatment that would have prevented permanent damage. If you suspect doctors failed to properly diagnose your baby in time, consider contacting an Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyer.
What Are the Complications of HIE?
HIE birth injuries can cause complications that permanently change how the child will live their life. Some of the most common disabilities that our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers see in our clients include:
Childhood Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder where abnormal electrical activity in the brain causes unpredictable and recurring seizures. Babies with severe HIE injuries at birth have a higher risk for developing this condition.
According to the National Epilepsy Foundation, over 140,000 individuals have epilepsy in the greater Chicagoland area.
Sensory Processing Issues
Our brains help us process all sensory input we take in from the world around us. But HIE brain damage can destroy the neural pathways and sensory receptors needed to control this information. This commonly results in complications like hearing loss and vision impairments.
Children may also experience a hypersensitivity to stimuli like light, loud noises, or feeling different textures. This can cause irritation to certain clothing, foods, and other items.
Delayed Developmental Milestones
As babies get older, they begin to show physical, emotional, and social signs of development. These developmental milestones include first words, first steps, and other markers of growth that parents look forward to celebrating.
However, babies with HIE birth injuries can develop skills on a slower timeline or never develop them at all. Their brain injury can prevent motor signals from firing and allowing the muscle coordination to sit up, stand, or walk.
Other common missed milestones include social and emotional delays, speech impairments, or the lack of speech altogether. The child may also struggle to control their emotions or interact with other kids their age.
Cerebral Palsy
HIE brain injuries are the leading cause of cerebral palsy worldwide. Cerebral palsy is a group of neurological disorders that can affect muscle movement, tone, coordination, speech, vision, hearing, and cognition.
Children with cerebral palsy often feel chronic pain from uncontrollable muscle spasms. Their spasticity may result in paralysis or jerky, involuntary movements. Swallowing disorders and speech impairments like dysarthria or dysphagia are also common with a cerebral palsy diagnosis.
Doctors usually wait until the child’s first year or two of life to diagnose cerebral palsy. But symptoms like developmental delays and feeding problems can appear before then. Medical professionals should carefully monitor children with HIE for any emerging symptoms of cerebral palsy to ensure timely treatment.
What is the Life Expectancy of a Baby with HIE?
HIE birth injuries account for roughly 23% of worldwide neonatal deaths. Of the infants who do survive, up to 40% will experience long-term complications like epilepsy, developmental delays, and cerebral palsy.
Though they may face challenges, children with severe HIE symptoms usually live a normal life expectancy with ongoing treatment. Children with mild cases usually face no long-term disabilities and live a full life with minimal to no additional treatment.
How Do Doctors Treat HIE Birth Injuries?
Doctors and nurses will not be able to completely cure or eliminate a baby’s HIE brain injury. However, providing treatment immediately after birth can reduce the injury’s severity and decrease the risk of suffering long-term complications.
HIE Birth Injury Neonatal Treatments
HIE treatment can begin almost immediately after the child’s birth. For the best neonatal outcomes, our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers recommend that healthcare professionals execute the following treatment strategies:
Therapeutic Hypothermia
Therapeutic hypothermia is the first (and often most effective) HIE injury treatment that medical professionals can provide.
Medical professionals will place the baby inside a thermal regulating machine set to keep their internal temperature at 92.3° Fahrenheit. The baby will stay in this cooling machine for roughly 72 hours before medical professionals slowly begin rewarming them.
The main idea behind therapeutic hypothermia is to lower the baby’s internal body temperature to reduce the baby’s metabolic rate. This lowers inflammation and prevents a secondary wave of tissue damage after birth by making the brain less oxygen dependent.
Not all children will be ideal candidates for cooling; pre-term babies or babies with low birth weights may not qualify. If the baby does qualify, healthcare providers need to start the cooling process within six hours of birth. Waiting too long can reduce the treatment’s effectiveness as oxygen reperfusion injury will have already set in.
Oxygen Therapy
Almost all babies with moderate to severe HIE injuries have breathing difficulties at birth. Doctors and delivery nurses must often provide neonatal resuscitation to restore the baby’s oxygen flow and prevent further brain damage.
If the baby is breathing but has low blood oxygen levels (hypoxemia), medical professionals may need to administer supplemental oxygen. They do this primarily with non-invasive tubes called nasal cannulas or with an assisted ventilation machine in extreme cases.
Seizure Management
Nearly 60% of HIE brain injury babies have seizures after birth. These episodes can interrupt breathing and pose a high risk to the baby’s life. Medical professionals should consider administering preventative antiseizure medications to babies with HIE, even without witnessing evidence of clinical seizures.
Additionally, they should keep a watchful eye over electrical activity in the baby’s brain. Continued monitoring with an EEG machine after birth will immediately alert healthcare providers of any seizure activity.
HIE Birth Injury Childhood Treatments
By early childhood age, the effects of a child’s HIE injuries will be largely irreversible. Ongoing care at this age becomes less about curing the injury itself and more about treating its related symptoms. Early intervention services and specialized follow-up care are instrumental in treating HIE complications and preventing further harm later in life.
Physical Therapy
An HIE brain injured baby will likely have motor impairments that cause muscle weakness, stiffness, or floppiness throughout childhood. This can hinder their ability to move freely, which prevents them from performing basic tasks and participating in certain activities.
In physical therapy, the child will practice targeted exercises that aim to improve their muscle strength, balance, and coordination. While each child’s exercises will differ based on their needs, the end goal to improve range of motion remains consistent. Starting physical therapy from a young age can help children avoid wearing down inactive muscle groups and prevent muscle contractures.
About Physical Therapy Treatments
Occupational Therapy
Occupational therapy focuses on practicing everyday tasks and skills that a child needs for daily living. This can include things like tying shoes, using eating utensils, and fine motor skills like pinching, clipping, buttoning, and cutting. Over time, the goal of practicing these tasks is to help children with HIE develop a greater sense of independence.
About Occupational Therapy Treatments
Speech Therapy
HIE in newborns can affect the muscles needed to properly eat, speak, or swallow. Speech therapy can help a child with neurological speech impairments practice targeted exercises to improve their abilities.
Over time, a speech therapist can boost confidence and social independence for children with HIE by improving their speaking skills.
About Speech Therapy Treatments
Assistive Equipment & Devices
Because newborn HIE injuries affect the brain, some children will experience mobility issues like muscle weakness, hypotonia, and paralysis. This can prevent children from performing everyday tasks like travelling, communicating, or even lying down on their own.
Assistive equipment and devices like wheelchairs, walkers, and adaptive furniture can make it easier for these children to move around. Home modifications like exterior ramps and roll-in showers can make activities around the house more accessible.
If their HIE brain injury causes speech impairments, some children may even utilize adaptive communication devices for interacting with others.
The Arc of Illinois
The Arc is a non-profit outreach organization with chapters nationwide supporting children with developmental disabilities. They support a wide range of support groups and organizations dedicated to providing community resources to families of these children.
The programs they support include Illinois Life Span, Family Advocate Program, and an assistive technology fund for children in Illinois. For more information on how families in Illinois can access these resources, please visit their website.
Does HIE Have a Cure?
No, newborn HIE injuries are incurable. However, HIE treatments exist that can greatly reduce the risk of long-term impairment.
Early intervention like hypothermia therapy within 6 hours after birth is the most effective treatment for actually reversing inflammation. During early childhood, a variety of medications, treatments, and therapies can reduce the severity of some HIE symptoms
The extent to which HIE will impact a child’s life will largely depend on the initial injury’s severity. Mild cases do not usually cause long-term impairment or disability. However, children with moderate to severe cases will likely need some form of HIE treatment throughout their life.
Did Medical Malpractice Cause My Child’s HIE Birth Injury?
When a child sustains injuries at birth, it’s only natural for parents to question how it could have possibly happened. Though we may not want to believe it, a trusted medical provider’s delivery room mistakes can sometimes be to blame.
Common Medical Mistakes That Lead to HIE Brain Injuries
There are countless medical mistakes that result in a baby’s HIE brain damage. Across hundreds of cases, our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers have identified the following errors as the most common causes:
- Failure to properly monitor the mother’s blood pressure during delivery
- Failure to carefully monitor fetal heart rates and respond to signs of fetal distress
- Missing placental problems like insufficiency or an abruption
- Missing umbilical cord problems like nuchal cord or cord compression
- Failure to sufficiently treat maternal infections like group b strep or chorioamnionitis
- Failure to intervene when the mother has a prolonged or arrested labor
- Delaying an emergency C-section when the baby has no access to oxygen
- Administering labor inducing medications like Pitocin and Cytotec and failing to adjust the dosage when complications occur
- The use of excessive force with delivery instruments like forceps and vacuum extractors
- Failure to conduct proper neuroimaging tests or umbilical cord blood gas testing after birth to confirm a case of HIE
- Failure to start therapeutic hypothermia treatment after an HIE birth injury
- Downplaying the extent of a child’s HIE birth injury to their parents and family.
It can feel overwhelming to learn your child’s hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy diagnosis was preventable with better care. But in these tragic moments, our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers are here to help.
If you believe your child suffered a preventable HIE brain injury, we urge you to explore legal avenues toward compensation. Contacting an Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyer can be the first step on your baby’s path to a better life.
How Long Do You Have to File an Illinois HIE Birth Injury Case?
A statute of limitations (SOL) sets a time limit on how long an injured person has to file a lawsuit.
Statutes of limitations vary based on the type of case and the state in which you filed it. For instance, the deadline for birth injury claims typically differs from other claims like fraud, contract disputes, and debt collection.
Illinois Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/13-212) (from Ch. 110, par. 13-212) Sec. 13-212For adults, the statute of limitations for Illinois medical malpractice lawsuits is 2 years from the date of the negligence. For children, families may file a claim on their behalf up to 8 years after the incident. However, claimants may not file after the child turns 22 years old.
Generally, the clock starts ticking on the date the injury occurred. However, there are exceptions to this rule. Some states (including Illinois) have something called the discovery rule. This means the statute of limitations starts after a person discovers or should have reasonably discovered an injury.
Depending on who you’re suing, you may need to file your claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). In FTCA cases, claimants must go through certain administrative procedures before filing a lawsuit.
The time period in which you must give "notice" may be shorter in some cases. Examples include if the negligent party was a local or state government hospital, or if the doctors are government employees.
The court will typically dismiss your case if you file it outside the statute of limitations. However, certain exceptions exist to the rules when the injured party is a child. Determining when a statute of limitations begins and ends can be tricky. Contact our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers as soon as possible.
How Can Our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Attorneys Help?
Signs of medical malpractice that cause HIE birth injuries aren’t always easy to spot. It can be especially difficult to know what happened as a mother giving birth when stress and emotions are high.
This is when it can be helpful to have an outside source available to assess the evidence. And catching preventable medical errors is exactly what our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers specialize in.
We will consult with our large network of legal and medical experts to thoroughly investigate what happened during your birth. We will hold negligent healthcare providers accountable for their errors in hopes that future families won’t endure the same pain.
Our work can help recover life-changing financial compensation that your family will be able to use to pay for:
- Medical treatments, appointments, procedures, and therapies to treat HIE complications
- Assistive equipment like mobility aids, communication devices, and home modifications
- Medications to treat related conditions like seizures or involuntary muscle spasms
- In-home caregivers and medical attendants who can provide around-the-clock care
Our Process
Our team of HIE Birth Injury Lawyers in Illinois will use our extensive case review process to assess your claim.
We start by speaking with your family directly to learn more about you and your child. We’ll gather medical records like fetal heart rate strips to support your claims. Important details we will consider and investigate further include:
- The types and dosages of medications doctors prescribed and administered during labor
- Whether medical professionals responded quickly enough to your delivery complications
- The time it took medical professionals to order and conduct an emergency C-section
- How quickly healthcare providers started neonatal cooling after birth in the event of an HIE brain injury
Our experienced team of medical experts like pediatric neurologists, radiologists, and neonatologists will review your records to determine whether medical errors could have contributed to your newborn's HIE injury. If we make a recovery, we will move forward with an official HIE birth injury medical malpractice lawsuit.
At no point will you need to pay any fees during the legal intake or litigation process. Our dedicated nursing and medical research division will conduct a comprehensive review of your case for free.
Our contingency fee policy means that we only charge attorney fees on cases we win. You will never have to pay out of pocket; we charge a pre-agreed fee outlined in our attorney-client retainer contract. We do not take on any HIE birth injury cases unless we fully know we will win.
Our Illinois HIE Birth Injury Lawyers handle cases in major cities like Chicago, Joliet, Schaumburg, Rockford, Naperville/Aurora, and more. You can contact us today to schedule your free consultation by calling our toll-free line at (888) 987-0005. You can also reach out by filling out our online request form.
National Birth Injury Law
Our National Birth Injury Attorneys, nurses, and support staff understand that parents of children with birth injuries feel overwhelmed. So, every client has the attention and support of a team of trained, compassionate professionals. But we don’t just offer compassion.
We offer a process to help you discover whether your child’s birth injury, HIE, cerebral palsy or brain injury at birth was caused by medical malpractice.
Call our offices today at (888) 987-0005 for experienced assistance in a free consultation.
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