California Birth Injury Attorneys

For several decades, Masry & Vititoe has represented those who have been seriously injured. Through experience and education, our firm is able to expertly evaluate medical injuries and pursue birth injury claims on behalf of the injured plaintiff. The skilled birthing injury attorneys at Masry & Vititoe provide sophisticated legal services for almost any type of injury.

Statistics show that approximately 27 of every 1000 births in the United States results in a birth injury. In the State of California there are approximately 1500 babies born each and every day. According to the statistics, 40 babies a day are born in California with some type of birth injury.

A "birth injury" is defined as any type of damage to an infant's body before, during or just after birth. Complications in the process of pregnancy, labor and delivery can result in a wide variety of complications for a newborn baby. Birth injuries vary greatly - from very minor to being so severe as to cause the death of the infant.

Some common types of birth injuries include skin irritations; temporary paralysis; fractured collar bone; fractured arm; Cerebral Palsy; brain damage; Erb's Palsy and Brachial Plexus Palsy. The most serious birth injuries involve damage to the infant's brain, causing brain damage, traumatic brain injury, seizures and mental retardation. These brain injuries are caused by oxygen deprivation or bleeding inside the brain from trauma during pregnancy, labor or delivery.

There are many "natural" circumstances wherein oxygen deprivation can occur during the labor and delivery process: the umbilical cord can become compressed or twisted in the birth process; the baby is too large to pass through the birth canal easily, or the baby is breach or sideways in the womb.

There are also many circumstances where brain damage or brain injuries are caused by mistakes made by doctors, hospitals or other medical professionals during the delivery process: a delay in performing a necessary C-section delivery, complication with a VBAC (vaginal birth after C-Section) delivery - such as uterine rupture, use of excessive force during the delivery, or a miscalculation in the size of the baby, causing a traumatic delivery.

An experienced birth injury lawyer should be consulted if your infant has suffered a birth trauma and you suspect those injuries were caused by medical negligence. The attorney should be consulted immediately after birth, even if the extent of the injuries and damages are not yet known. Unfortunately, doctors and hospitals will almost never admit fault or offer to pay reasonable damages to cover even the likely economic loss from an injury. Appropriate discovery is essential to knowing whether there is a case, and to knowing what the likely costs will be that are associated with any permanent injury.

Therefore, it is important to consult an experienced birth injury attorney early because records and other information that are vital to knowing whether negligence occurred might be lost over time. Frequently hospitals and doctors will destroy or lose records within months of the delivery. Also, important witnesses such as nurses and therapists will forget details or move, making it difficult to recover essential facts. Further, almost any time there is a bad result to a patient, the hospital personnel and doctors will meet with their own lawyers to begin formulating a strategy to defend any potential case. Time is an important ally to both sides.

We carefully screen all medical related cases. Medical negligence is extremely difficult to prove, and requires qualified experts who are willing to testify that the care given failed to meet the appropriate standards, and that this failure caused injuries.

Masry & Vititoe believes that in order to represent our injured clients in the best possible manner, our firm must have an understanding of the human anatomy and how it responds to an injury. Therefore, through experience and education, our firm is able to expertly evaluate birth injuries and successfully pursue claims on behalf of the injured plaintiff.

While proving a physical, emotional, or cognitive injury can be difficult, our experienced and knowledgeable attorneys and staff are able to undertake difficult cases and prevail, convincing skeptics of the merits of a claim via credible, trustworthy evidence and objective test findings. Our law firm is committed to protecting our client's rights and has repeatedly demonstrated our ability to succeed in the most challenging and complex birth injury cases.

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