Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyers
HIE Birth Injury Attorneys in Pennsylvania
New babies enter this world every day to parents who eagerly anticipate their arrival. In Pennsylvania alone, doctors deliver over 127,000 children each year.
For parents, each birth brings hope for a bright future filled with opportunities and potential. But some babies will get these opportunities taken away from them after undergoing severe brain damage at birth.
Most parents hear the words “hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy” for the first time once their baby arrives with noticeable birth complications. Medical professionals will inform them that this neonatal brain injury may never allow their child to live a “normal” life. This tragic news can turn one of the happiest days in a parent’s life into one of the darkest.
Healthcare providers may try to tell parents that their child’s HIE birth injury was unavoidable. Our Pennsylvania HIE birth injury lawyers can attest that this is not always true.
Critical errors in response to labor and delivery complications can drastically impact fetal oxygen supply. If doctors and nurses are unable to quickly restore oxygen and blood flow, brain injuries like HIE can happen fast.
A missed risk factor or delayed response to medical emergencies can have permanent impacts on a baby’s future. If you think medical malpractice was the cause of your child’s HIE, let our Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury lawyers investigate. We will help your family seek justice and compensation by pursuing medical malpractice claims against the responsible parties.
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One conversation with a Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyer can provide valuable insight into your family’s path to justice.
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HIE Birth Injury Lawyers
(888) 987-0005Our Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyers are available to meet you in your home or the hospital.
We know the legal process can feel intimidating and overwhelming, especially when your baby needs help today. It is our hope to secure financial compensation that can bring life-changing care, treatment, and comfort for your child.
For over 40 years, our nationally recognized birth injury team has been holding negligent healthcare providers responsible for their mistakes. We have a respected reputation of securing large settlement sums and trial verdicts for families across the United States.
We attribute this success to our team-based approach on each and every one of our cases. When you hire our Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyers to represent you, you get more than just an attorney. We assign an entire team of attorneys, nursing staff, nursing advocates, and medical experts to each client.
Your team is here to help you both inside and outside of the courtroom. We are available to answer your legal and medical questions and provide important case updates as they come.
But our help doesn’t stop there: we are here to 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.
We offer this help on a contingency fee basis, meaning you do not owe us anything until after we win your case. When we win, we will only charge a pre-agreed percentage fee outlined in an attorney-client retainer contract. We will never charge families expenses for cases we don’t win; we only receive payment after you do.
The Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyers at our firm have a long history of legal victories that speaks for itself.
Recent HIE Birth Injury Settlement
Our nationwide firm has a dedicated nursing and medical research division that has secured over $1 billion for families of birth injured children. This includes a recent $13.75 million verdict for the family of a child who suffered from an HIE birth injury.
A mother's blood pressure dropped to dangerous levels after nurses and physicians failed to properly monitor her vitals during delivery. This restricted her baby’s oxygen supply and triggered an HIE event that led to neonatal seizures. Medical professionals provided neonatal resuscitation to save the baby’s life, but permanent brain damage had already set in. Our team of Pennsylvania HIE injury lawyers recovered $13,750,000 to help the family with future medical expenses and developmental therapy.
What is an HIE Birth Injury?
HIE (short for hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy) is the most common form of newborn brain injury. It stems from a deficiency in oxygen and blood to the baby’s brain during birth.
- Hypoxic means hypoxia, or having low oxygen levels in the body’s tissues.
- Ischemic means neonatal ischemia, or reduced/restricted blood flow to a specific part of the body. In the context of an HIE birth injury, ischemia affects blood flow to the baby’s brain.
- Encephalopathy is a general medical term referring to any damage, disease, or injury to the brain.
Because oxygen travels primarily through the blood, a baby who experiences ischemia will almost certainly experience hypoxia simultaneously. HIE is the number one cause of cerebral palsy, a group of neurological conditions affecting a child’s muscle movement.
Children with moderate to severe HIE often have cognitive disabilities, vision impairments, seizures, and delayed developmental milestones. Researchers believe that newborn HIE injuries are still one of the leading causes of neonatal mortality and morbidity worldwide.
How Common are HIE Birth Injuries in Pennsylvania?
While HIE is the most common type of brain injury at birth, the condition is still relatively rare. Recent studies suggest the incidence rate is around 1.7 in every 1000 births in the United States. Using public state birth rate data, we can estimate that around 215 newborns in Pennsylvania will develop HIE each year.
How Does the Baby Develop an HIE Birth Injury?
Contrary to popular belief, HIE brain injuries actually occur over two main stages. An initial dip in oxygenated blood flow is just the first event in a domino effect leading up to irreversible brain damage at birth:
Stage 1: Hypoxic-Ischemic Insult
Hypoxic-Ischemic Event: A complication during pregnancy or a delivery complication stops the flow of oxygenated blood to the baby’s brain. When this happens abruptly (such as with a placental abruption or uterine rupture), it is an acute profound hypoxic event. When it happens over a period of time (such as with placental insufficiency), it is a partial prolonged hypoxic event. Both acute and prolonged hypoxia can injure the brain, just at different speeds.
Cellular Shutdown & Initial Injury: After long enough without sufficient oxygen (usually between 2-15 minutes), brain cells start shutting down. The sudden cell death causes rapid inflammation and swelling in the baby’s 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: With the baby usually delivered at this point, oxygenated blood resumes flowing to the brain. Doctors call this period the latent phase, or the small window of recovery where therapeutic interventions are most effective. This is the ideal time for neonatal cooling therapy to reduce excess brain swelling.
Oxygen Reperfusion & Secondary Injury: As oxygen rushes back to the brain, the body mistakes the brain tissue inflammation for an infection. As a result, the 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 is actually more severe than the initial insult.
What Causes Newborn HIE Birth Injuries?
The direct cause of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy is a deficiency in oxygen and blood flow to the baby’s brain.
Our cells need oxygen to produce energy. Even before birth, our brain cells are the largest oxygen consumers. In fact, an adult brain consumes over one fifth of the body’s total energy to maintain constant neural activity.
The brain consumes even more energy during fetal development and at birth, making steady oxygen flow even more crucial. If the baby’s body cannot meet this high demand, their brain cells will start shutting down.
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 Risk Factors for HIE Injuries?
While hypoxia and ischemia are the sole cause of HIE, there can be many different underlying causes initially triggering it.
The following complications are risk factors that our Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyers commonly see contributing to an HIE diagnosis:
Placental Problems
In the womb, the baby receives all blood, oxygen, and nutrients from the mother’s placenta. Placental complications during pregnancy or labor can affect oxygenated blood flow and therefore increase the risk for hypoxia or ischemia.
Placental insufficiency during pregnancy can gradually reduce a child’s oxygen supply over an extended period of time. Over time, this depletes the baby’s energy reserves and leads to a partial prolonged HIE injury at birth.
The placenta will no longer function if it prematurely detaches from the uterine lining. This medical emergency (known as placental abruption) can deprive the baby of oxygen and cause brain damage within just minutes.
Other placental issues that can potentially cause HIE in infants include placenta previa and vasa previa. Both of these problems can complicate vaginal delivery and increase the baby’s risk for oxygen deprivation during labor.
Umbilical Cord Issues
Oxygenated blood makes its way from the placenta to the baby through the umbilical cord. Different umbilical cord problems during pregnancy or during labor can block critical nutrients from reaching the baby’s brain.
Knots in the cord or loops wrapped around the baby’s neck (nuchal cord) can pose minor risks to blood flow. However, more serious complications include cord compression and cord prolapse.
Umbilical cord compression occurs when the baby’s body presses against the cord inside the womb, often restricting blood flow. Umbilical cord prolapses are an even more dangerous type of compression where the cord delivers before the baby does. As the baby attempts to exit the birth canal, they squeeze against the cord and restrict oxygen flow almost entirely.
Serious complications like cord prolapse or multiple nuchal cord loops can require an emergency C-section to avoid severe perinatal hypoxia.
Abnormal Blood Pressure
An expecting mother’s blood volume increases by nearly 50% during pregnancy to support placental blood flow. Her heart pumps harder because of this, which is why many women develop hypertensive disorders like preeclampsia during pregnancy.
Preeclampsia is a condition causing high blood pressure and narrowing of the mother’s blood vessels. When left unmonitored, it can reduce placental blood flow over time and put the baby at risk for ischemia.
Maternal Blood Clots
During pregnancy, an expecting mother’s body produces higher levels of blood-clotting proteins like fibrinogen in preparation for delivery. This, along with other factors like increased pressure on the pelvic veins, increases her risk for developing blood clots.
Clotting, particularly within the placenta, can block the passage of oxygenated blood from travelling to the baby. This puts them at a higher risk for hypoxia and ischemia, which can cause HIE birth injuries.
Infections
Maternal infections like group b strep or chorioamnionitis can easily transfer to the baby during labor. If the child contracts a fetal or neonatal infection from their mother, it can trigger widespread bodily inflammation. This inflammation can restrict oxygen delivery to the baby’s brain and increase the risk of injuries like HIE.
Additionally, maternal infections can result in fever for both the mother and her baby. This 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 naturally constrict placental blood and oxygen flow as the uterus pushes the baby out. The baby can withstand short periods of reduced oxygenation during labor. However, labor that surpasses 18 hours or stops progressing altogether can become dangerous.
Labor Inducing Medications
Labor-Inducing medications like Pitocin and Cytotec can induce contractions that more tightly constrict placental blood flow. Doctors will typically prescribe these medications to mothers with weak contractions or when their labor fails to begin or progress.
But too high of a dosage can result in contractions that are too frequent and overly powerful. This labor complication (called uterine hyperstimulation) can dangerously restrict fetal oxygenation and increase the baby’s risk of an HIE injury.
Uterine Rupture
A uterine rupture is a dangerous labor complication where one or more layers of the uterine lining begin to tear. This can abruptly cut off all oxygen flow to the baby during labor, greatly increasing their risk for HIE injuries.
Shoulder Dystocia
Shoulder dystocia occurs when the child’s head exits the birth canal, but their shoulders remain stuck inside. The longer the baby remains lodged behind the mother’s pubic bone, the greater their risk becomes for birth asphyxia. Prolonged cases of shoulder dystocia can cut off blood circulation to the baby’s head and potentially cause brain damage.
Newborn Head Injuries
Injuries to a baby’s head during birth can physically damage their brain tissue. These injuries can lead to inflammation that restricts essential blood flow to their brain. When severe enough, birth trauma to the head can disrupt cerebral perfusion enough to result in an HIE injury.
Common head injuries that cause this inflammation can include skull fractures, intracranial hemorrhages, or cephalohematoma. These injuries are more likely in difficult deliveries or when doctors misuse delivery instruments like forceps and vacuum extractors.
Preterm Birth
Babies with a premature birth usually have not had enough time for their organs to fully develop. An underdeveloped brain and/or blood vessels can make the baby less capable of managing a restricted oxygen supply. This will increase their vulnerability to brain injuries like HIE if they experience a hypoxic-ischemic event during labor.
It’s important to note that these complications will not always confirm that a child sustained brain damage at birth. However, these risk factors have great potential to cause hypoxia and ischemia during pregnancy or during labor.
Medical professionals can lower the child’s risk by taking preventative action during pregnancy or quickly intervening when labor complications occur. If they failed to take proper action, our Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyers are prepared to hold them accountable.
What Are Signs of an HIE Brain Injury?
A newborn’s symptoms of HIE and oxygen deprivation often start before they even leave their mother’s womb. During cases, our Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyers will determine whether medical professionals properly recognized the following signs of injury:
Abnormal Fetal Heart Rate Patterns
Non-reassuring fetal heart rates will likely be the first sign that the child underwent a hypoxic event during labor. This is because fetal heart rate patterns indicate when a baby isn’t receiving enough oxygen. Patterns that medical professionals should immediately recognize as concerning include:
- Late decelerations after a contraction
- Minimal to no change (variability) in heart rate
- A baseline heart rate under 100 beats per minute (fetal bradycardia)
- A baseline heart rate over 160 beats per minute (fetal tachycardia)
Doctors and nurses should carefully monitor the baby’s heartbeat so they know when to intervene with an emergency c-section delivery.
Seizures at Birth
HIE Birth injuries can trigger abnormal electrical signals in the brain, causing neurons to fire uncontrollably. This 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
The lack of oxygen from fetal hypoxia causes the baby’s cells to create excess lactic acid when producing energy. Over time, lactic acid buildup can lower the baby’s blood pH to more acidic and dangerous levels.
A blood pH is 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.
Poor Physical Appearance
Medical professionals should carefully examine the baby’s appearance upon delivery. Signs of an HIE injury or other brain damage at birth can include:
- Shallow breathing or no breathing at all
- Irregular heartbeat (fetal bradycardia or tachycardia)
- Blueish tint around their lips and face
- Fatigue
- Floppy, weak muscle tone (hypotonia)
- Arched back
- Poor reflexes
- Loss of consciousness
A newborn with two or more of these physical symptoms should undergo testing for possible brain injuries like HIE.
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. A Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyer can help identify when delayed action caused or worsened your child’s HIE brain damage.
How to Diagnose an HIE Birth Injury?
To accurately diagnose HIE injuries, medical professionals must rely on a combination of physical symptoms and test results. The following tools are the most reliable indicators for determining whether2 a baby has HIE brain damage:
APGAR Test
All babies receive an APGAR score at birth to evaluate whether they need further medical intervention. Medical professionals will assess a baby across 5 measurable categories and assign each one a score between 0-2.
Babies with HIE birth injuries will score low in all APGAR categories, particularly in the respiration and pulse sections. Overall scores between 0-5 after 10 minutes are a sign of moderate to severe HIE. Doctors often use the APGAR score as the first indicator of a baby needing further testing for brain damage.
SARNAT Exam
While similar to the APGAR test, the SARNAT exam has a more specific focus on characteristics of neonatal brain injuries. Medical professionals evaluate the baby using a set of criteria aligning with common HIE symptoms like seizures and muscle tone.
What Are the Stages of HIE?
The SARNAT scale breaks the baby’s HIE injury into three stages of severity based on symptoms at birth:
- Stage I (Mild): the newborn’s HIE injuries are minimal and will likely have no noticeable lasting impacts on their life
- Stage II (Moderate): the newborn shows signs of significant injury from HIE that will require further intervention
- Stage III (Severe): the newborn has sustained serious HIE injuries that will strongly affect their development and capabilities in life
Umbilical Cord Blood Gas Testing
When a baby undergoes severe oxygen deprivation during birth, there will be markers of it in their blood. 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 fetal acidosis, which occurs when the baby doesn’t receive enough oxygen.
Blood gas tests that come back positive for acidosis should push medical professionals to conduct further testing. When a baby exhibits signs of acidemia during birth, their healthcare providers should always check for potential brain injuries.
Brain Imaging Scans
Neuroimaging scans are the most definitive method a medical professional can use to detect HIE birth injuries. The most common test for neonates is Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanning because of its high accuracy and non-invasive nature. Electroencephalogram (EEG) testing measures the brain’s electrical activity and can also help doctors spot abnormal signals that indicate brain damage.
These tests help medical professionals determine the precise location, severity, and expected long-term effects 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 a Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyer.
What Are the Complications of an HIE Birth Injury?
HIE birth injuries can cause complications that permanently change how the child will live their life. Some of the most common disabilities that our Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyers see in our clients include:
Epilepsy
Babies with severe HIE injuries at birth are at high risk of developing epilepsy during childhood. This is a condition where abnormal electrical activity in the brain causes recurring seizures. According to the National Epilepsy Foundation, more than 110,000 people in Pennsylvania have an epilepsy diagnosis.
Sensory Impairments
We use our brains to control and process all sensory output. When children experience an HIE injury at birth, it can damage crucial neural pathways and sensory receptors.
The most common sensory damage from HIE injuries is hearing loss and vision impairments.
Delayed Developmental Milestones
The effects of an HIE injury at birth can slowly appear as the child gets older. While each person is different, there are common developmental milestones that most babies will hit by a certain age. These can include the baby’s first smile, crawling, or taking their first steps. Children with HIE are more likely to miss these milestones or hit them at a much later age than normal.
Other common missed milestones include social and emotional delays, speech impairments, or the lack of speech altogether. A child with HIE birth injuries may also have difficulties controlling their emotions or a hesitation to interact with others.
Cerebral Palsy
HIE brain injuries are the leading cause of cerebral palsy worldwide. Cerebral palsy is a group of neurological disorders affecting muscle movement, tone, coordination, speech, vision, hearing, and cognitive abilities.
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?
A child with a mild or even moderate case of HIE will typically have an average life expectancy. However, severe HIE birth injuries can come with cerebral palsy symptoms that do have the potential to shorten life expectancy.
Conditions like epilepsy, hemiplegia, or severe respiratory issues can wear down a child’s body faster.
But proper treatment and intervention can ensure that children who survive HIE birth injuries will live long and healthy lives.
How Do Doctors Treat HIE Birth Injuries?
Healthcare providers are somewhat limited in their abilities to completely reduce or treat an HIE brain injury. However, different HIE treatment strategies exist that can make the child's symptoms more manageable
HIE Birth Injury Neonatal Treatments
Immediate HIE treatment after birth is the only time when it’s possible to reduce the injury’s long-term effects. Depending on the newborn’s status, healthcare providers should start the following treatments as soon after birth as possible:
Neonatal Brain Cooling
Neonatal brain cooling (or therapeutic hypothermia) is the most widely known and effective treatment for minimizing an HIE injury’s effects.
Medical professionals use thermal regulating machines and other tools to manually lower the baby’s internal temperature to 92.3 degrees Fahrenheit. This lower temperature stops swelling and slows the cellular metabolism that causes the second wave of HIE injury after birth.
It is important for the cooling process to begin within six hours after the baby’s birth. Waiting too long can reduce the treatment’s effectiveness as oxygen reperfusion injury will have already set in.
Anticonvulsant Medications & Continued EEG Monitoring
One study estimates that up to 60% of HIE Birth Injury victims will experience seizures at birth. Doctors and nurses can mitigate the risk of further damage by administering preventative antiseizure medications. They should also use tools like an EEG machine to monitor electrical activity in the brain after birth.
Supplemental Oxygen
Children who have suffered hypoxia at birth may have breathing difficulties that persist after delivery. If the baby isn’t breathing, medical professionals will need to perform neonatal resuscitation to quickly restore oxygen flow.
Babies with shallow breathing and a weak pulse may need supplemental oxygen treatment through an assisted ventilation machine.
HIE Birth Injury Childhood Treatments
As the child grows up, the brain damage from HIE they suffered as a newborn becomes irreversible. Doctors and specialists must shift their HIE treatment strategies toward managing existing symptoms rather than curing or reversing them. Proven effective treatment methods for children with HIE birth injuries can include:
Physical Therapy
Brain injuries often cause neurological damage that impacts muscle movement and control. Many children who suffered an HIE birth injury have stiff muscles and a very limited range of motion. Physical therapy introduces targeted exercises that can help these children improve their flexibility and overcome immobility problems.
Occupational Therapy
Occupational therapy gives children practice in performing routine, everyday tasks needed for daily living. This includes activities like holding utensils, writing, brushing hair, brushing teeth, putting on clothes, or tying shoes. Over time, repeated practice of these tasks will help children with HIE develop a greater sense of independence.
About HIE Occupational Therapy
Speech Therapy
HIE in newborns can cause neurological speech impairments making it difficult to properly eat, speak, or swallow. With speech therapy, a child can learn swallowing techniques, tongue placements, and articulation strategies that will improve their abilities.
Over time, a speech therapist can help children with HIE feel more independent and socially confident with improved speaking skills.
Assistive Equipment & Devices
Newborn HIE injuries often lead to cerebral palsy symptoms later in childhood that prevent children from managing everyday tasks.
Assistive equipment and devices like wheelchairs, walkers, and adaptive furniture can make it easier for these children to move around. Some children may also use adaptive communication devices to interact with others if their HIE brain injury causes speech impairments.
Pennsylvania’s Promise for Children Program
Pennsylvania’s Promise for Children is a statewide campaign under the PA Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL). It offers resources centered around providing access to quality early learning and health care for children with developmental delays.
The campaign’s website has links to important state research tools for finding educational services and health care resources. They also include parenting resource guides for managing challenging behaviors. Pennsylvania families of children with HIE brain injuries can use the program as a starting point to identify local resources.
Is There a Cure to HIE?
No, newborn HIE injuries are, in large part, irreversible. However, HIE symptoms can be manageable with proper medical care and early intervention.
The extent to which HIE will impact a child’s life will 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 and intervention throughout their life.
Each child’s experience will vary based on their unique circumstances. In general, babies who receive early intervention like neonatal cooling tend to have the most favorable outcomes later in life.
Did Medical Malpractice Cause My Child’s HIE Birth Injury?
When medical professionals make negligent mistakes, they count on your lack of medical and obstetrical knowledge to get away with it. They know that you are probably unaware of what’s normal and abnormal during standard labor and deliveries. But if their preventable errors caused your child’s brain injuries, our Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury lawyers will find out.
We have witnessed countless examples of birth injury medical malpractice that negatively affected neonatal outcomes.
Common Errors Causing HIE Birth Injuries
- 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 complications 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 Pennsylvania 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 a Pennsylvania 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 a Pennsylvania 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.
42 Pennsylvania Consolidated Statues Section 5524
For adults, the statute of limitations in medical malpractice lawsuits is generally 2 years from the date of negligence. For children, the statute of limitations is slightly different. Parents may file a birth injury lawsuit for their child no later than their 20th birthday
.
Generally, the clock starts ticking on the date the injury occurred. However, there are exceptions to this rule. Some states (including Pennsylvania) 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. If you're considering pursuing compensation for a birth injury, contact a Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyer as soon as possible.
How Can Our Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Attorneys Help?
An expecting mother entrusts medical professionals with not only her life, but her baby’s life as well. When their negligence causes a child’s irreversible brain damage, our Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyers will make sure there’s consequences.
We will use our vast 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. We will prove medical malpractice to recover life-changing financial compensation for your family to put toward:
- Medical treatments, appointments, procedures, and therapies
- Assistive equipment like wheelchairs, walkers, and home modifications
- Medications to treat related conditions like seizures or muscle spasms
- In-home caregivers and medical attendants
Our Process
Our dedicated team of HIE Birth Injury Lawyers in Pennsylvania use a tried-and-true case review process while assessing your claim.
We start by learning more about you and your child. We will gather medical records like fetal heart rate strips to determine what happened before, during, and after your delivery. We will look into important details like:
- The types of medications doctors prescribed and administered during labor
- How long your labor lasted, and whether medical professionals intervened in time
- How long 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
We consult with experienced medical experts, such as pediatric neurologists and neonatologists. They 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 Pennsylvania HIE Birth Injury Lawyers will get to work building your case from the moment you first reach out. You can contact us today to schedule your free consultation by calling our toll-free line at (888) 987-0005. We can also get into contact if you submit 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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- Lyric C. I feel like our voice was heard in a sense of what can possibly go wrong in a delivery and finding us answers. I feel with our settlement, we are now in a comfortable position to provide for our son.
- Lyssa L. They are not just people that say “hey let's get you money and let's go” The law firm was very thorough with us. It was awesome. I don't want to cry, because I think about and it's amazing that they were able to help me and that we were able to help my son and get the story out there.
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