Birth Injury Claim and Obstetric Cases
Making a birth injury claim
If negligent medical care has resulted in a poorer outcome than you were expecting for your health or the health of your baby, you may be able to make a claim for compensation.
Pregnancy and pre-natal care in Scotland
In Scotland, the NHS provide pre-natal or antenatal care (care during pregnancy), labour and delivery and post-natal care (care after the birth of your baby).
You will attend regular midwifery appointments throughout your pregnancy as well as obstetric appointments with a consultant if necessary. It’s important that you and the health of your baby is monitored throughout your pregnancy and you feel supported with your birth choices. Investigations such as blood, urine and blood pressure checks are carried out. Scanning and screening for certain foetal conditions are also ordinarily offered.
Birth and delivery may occur at home, in midwifery led units or in hospital. In Scotland, all hospital births will be in an NHS facility. Hospital stay can vary from as little as 6-8 hours to several days and in some cases a lengthier stay may be necessary for you and/or your baby. Delivery can be vaginal with or without assisted delivery (such as delivery using forceps), elective caesarean section or emergency caesarean section.
Whether your pregnancy is single or twin, high or low risk, maternal and obstetric care should be of a high standard throughout your pregnancy, labour, delivery and beyond.
Sadly, there may be an outcome that was unexpected either in terms of your health or that of your baby’s health and you may wish to know more about what happened before you decide to make a birth injury claim. In these circumstances and if you feel you are up to it, you may wish to discuss what happened and ask for a delivery debrief. Most health boards can offer this and can involve a midwife or consultant obstetrician. It may assist to write any questions you have in advance and have a supporter attend any meetings with you. A supporter could be your partner or a trusted family member or friend.
Make a birth injury claim with L&M MediLaw
If you wish confidential legal advice on what happened to you or your baby, L&M MediLaw will approach the matter sensitively and with compassion. We will listen to you, ask what happened and where you think things went wrong.
Inadequate support during pregnancy and delivery
You may feel you weren’t sufficiently monitored during your pregnancy and that resulted in either a poorer outcome for your health or your baby’s health. Alternatively, you may feel you were uninformed in respect to your birthing options and that the risk and benefits were not fully disclosed and that this caused an injury either to you or to your baby. In respect to delivery itself, you may feel that there was a delay in intervening or escalating your care that had a negative impact on you or your baby’s health.
Maternal and neonatal injuries
Maternal injuries (injuries to the mother) can include but are not limited to prolapse, severe tears, haemorrhaging and infection requiring ICU stay, and psychiatric injury.
Neonatal injuries can include, but aren’t limited to, brain injuries caused from hypoxia (deprivation of oxygen), shoulder dystocia related injury and damage from assisted delivery, such as the use of Kielland forceps.
Supporting you with expert legal advice and options
Whatever happened, L&M MediLaw will provide advice on your legal options. If you want to proceed with a birth damage case and there’s sufficient information to support a possible case of negligence, L&M MediLaw will recover your medical records, birthing notes and your child’s records (if the injury relates to your child). We will also take a full factual statement from you in reference to the records.
If advised, we’ll instruct a suitable independent expert. This may be a midwife or consultant obstetrician or gynaecologist. Birth damage cases can involve a number of medical disciplines, so it’s common in these type of cases for there to be a number of experts involved. If there’s sufficient independent expert evidence, a claim would then be intimated to the applicable Health Board which would outline our case and detail the injuries or outcome.
The Health Board would then conduct its own investigations and come back with their position. Depending on this response, we either enter into settlement negotiations or embark on court proceedings. Either way, L&M MediLaw will fully support you throughout your legal journey.
L&M Medilaw will ensure a full exploration of the effects of any negligent care and treatment is completed. Future care, therapies, equipment and housing needs for children who have experienced birth damage, and in particular brain damage, can be very expensive. They may be required long term, if not lifelong. L&M Medilaw recognise this and will do everything it can to maximise any compensation due to you or your child to ensure care needs are fully met.
For those who have sadly experienced miscarriage, still birth or infant death, we have outlined below some charities and information pages that may be helpful in either offering practical or emotional support. If you want information on the law and a fatal case (case involving the death of a child/adult) please visit our Frequently Asked Questions.
Contact our birth damage and obstetric negligence claims solicitors in Glasgow today
Everyone should receive the best medical care possible when giving birth. Where you have been failed by a medical professional, L&M MediLaw can support you with compassionate, professional legal services. We have offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh city centre and serve clients all across Scotland.
To discuss your birth damage case with a lawyer you can trust, contact us today on 0141 471 3078 or complete our online enquiry form and we will get back to you right away.