Los Angeles Birth Injury Attorney

Birth injuries fall into two broad groups. The first is physical trauma from the delivery itself - broken bones or brachial-plexus/Erb’s palsy (a nerve injury). The second, and far more consequential, is brain damage from a combination of oxygen and blood-flow deprivation, technically hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE).

Early signs can be as subtle as feeding difficulty and developmental delay, progressing to floppiness and missed milestones, and can span the full range of physical, cognitive and movement disability.

Because the body diverts blood to protect the brain, HIE often also harms the kidneys, gut and liver.

Cerebral palsy is a common downstream diagnosis.

Yes - and of all medical cases, a severe birth injury is among the most compelling to bring.

The child faces either enormous lifelong-care costs or, at a minimum, an inability ever to fully care for themselves once the parents are gone, so a lawsuit is often the only way to secure the decades of care an innocent victim will need.

Liability is almost always shared between the delivering physicians and the hospital.

Birth-injury deadlines are more generous than adult claims but genuinely complicated.

The child’s own claim is generally six years from birth, and in some circumstances eight - as a working rule, assume six.

The parents’ separate claim, however, is limited to the usual one year, and any claim involving a public hospital requires a government claim within six months.

Because these interact in tricky ways, families should consult a firm well before any deadline rather than assuming the child’s longer window protects everyone.

The dominant item is the cost of lifelong care.

After the initial acute medical expenses, most of these children stabilize but remain dependent, so the largest component is attendant care - up to 24/7 care through a bonded agency (typically a licensed vocational nurse, or LVN), which for a severely injured child can mean three staffed shifts a day for life.

On top of that come therapies (occupational, physical and more), the child’s lost future earning capacity, and - subject to MICRA - non-economic damages.

Multiple family claims frequently exist: the mother has her own case, and the father may claim loss of consortium; if the child later dies, a separate wrongful-death claim arises with its own limits.

Responsibility for birth injuries is frequently shared among multiple parties.

Common defendants include the delivering obstetrician, neonatologists, nurses, and the hospital itself.

Hospitals may also be liable for inadequate staffing, credentialing failures, nursing errors, or system failures such as an inability to perform an emergency C-section within accepted standards.

Identifying every responsible party is important because it may significantly affect available compensation and applicable damage caps.