Medical Negligence: Negligent labour care, gynaecological care + birth injury

Why pursue a clinical negligence claim for negligent labour care, gynaecological and birth injury.

Through pregnancy, labour and post-birth, you are completely reliant on the clinical staff around you, whether they are midwives, doctors, nurses or surgeons.

These teams all owe a duty of care to you and must work to the standard of a ‘reasonable professional’ in relation to appointments, identification of any potential issues and having tests and results provided within a timely manner.

Poor treatment by a doctor or a midwife, or failure by them to identify birth defects could be grounds for a claim.

Likewise, if you or your partner were sterilised or told you were infertile, but then you became pregnant, that could give rise to a ‘wrongful birth’ claim. This does happen from time to time when a vasectomy has not been fully successful.

Other common obstetric errors include: –

• Failing to appropriately manage a difficult labour which, in turn, lead to oxygen depravation of the baby and associated birth injury.
• Incorrect interpretation of Cardiotocography trace (CTG) equipment.
•  Failing to monitor baby’s health during birth.
• Failing to create an adequate c-section incision, leading to birth injury.
• Poor management of complications during labour, following c-section and following birth.

Making a claim if your baby has been injured

The worst results of mismanagement of pregnancy and labour are miscarriage, stillbirth and cerebral palsy.

For Palsy claims, it is especially important to consider making a claim on behalf of your child, as the most seriously injured children who are not likely to be able to live a fully independent life will likely be awarded funding to have congoing care, therapies and treatment for many years as part of their claim settlement.

How long do I have to make a claim

It is completely understandable that making a claim would be the last of your priorities if you or your child has suffered maternity clinical negligence. However there are dates by which you must have either settled the claim or have had it issued to court. These are called ‘limitation dates’.

Limitation date for injury to an adult: 3 years from the date of the negligence.

Limitation date for injury to a child: 3 years from the date of their 18th birthday

Generally we recommend that you get in touch sooner rather than later. This is because the event will be clear in your mind and medical records will be easily obtainable.

Meet our medical negligence team

Our team works at all levels of claim, from minor injury claims through to catastrophic clinical negligence injuries.

To find out more about each of our team members, please click the link to their profiles:-

• William Weller – Senior Consultant Solicitor.
• Lauren Martin – Associate FCILEx Lawyer.
• James Weller – Solicitor.
• Emily Newton-Price – Trainee Solicitor.

Are there any upfront fees to make a claim?

We run our medical negligence claims on a Conditional Fee Agreement, more commonly known as a ‘No win, no fee’ agreement.

What this means is that we will run the claim for you. We deduct a small fee from your settlement compensation to meet our fees and expenses (which is a capped fee) if your claim is successful.

This provides complete cost transparency and comfort at a time where a medical mistake may have left you struggling financially.

Ready to find out more?

We provide a free initial discussion and legal advice so that you can be sure of where you stand. This service does not cost you a penny and you are under no obligation to proceed your claim with us.

We would be proud to assist you. You are most welcome to contact our friendly client focussed team to start your negligence claim journey through our website, by telephone, by video call or in person at our offices.