When a newborn suffers harm during childbirth due to medical carelessness, families in Catonsville face years of specialized medical care, intensive therapies, and financial pressures that no parent anticipates. The bright future once envisioned for your child suddenly changes, replaced by uncertainty and questions about how your family will provide the extraordinary care your child now requires.
At Schochor, Staton, Goldberg and Cardea, P.A., our birth injury attorneys combine medical knowledge with unwavering legal representation to help Catonsville families secure the financial resources their injured children need. We stand with Baltimore County families, fighting for justice while you focus on your child’s development and care.
Understanding Birth Injury Claims in Catonsville
Definition of Birth Injury
Birth injuries occur when newborns suffer physical trauma or medical complications during labor and delivery. Unlike birth defects that develop during pregnancy from genetic or environmental factors, birth injuries result from events during the birthing process itself, often through preventable medical oversight or improper techniques.
Common birth injuries include cerebral palsy from oxygen deprivation, brachial plexus injuries (including Erb’s palsy) from excessive force during delivery, skull fractures from improper instrument use, and brain damage from untreated jaundice or infections. These conditions frequently require lifetime medical intervention and substantially alter a child’s developmental trajectory.
Maryland Birth Injury Law
Maryland establishes particular rules governing birth injury claims that Catonsville families must understand:
- Statute of Limitations: Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings §5-109 sets two concurrent deadlines:
- Five years from when the injury occurred, or
- Three years from when the injury was reasonably discovered, whichever comes first
For children, Maryland provides needed protection through exceptions that extend filing deadlines. Most birth injury claims benefit from an extension until the child’s 11th birthday, allowing families time to understand their child’s condition before legal decisions become imperative.
These deadline extensions recognize that some neurological injuries become apparent only as developmental milestones are missed.
- Procedural Requirements: Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings §3-2A-04 requires a Certificate of Qualified Expert within 90 days of filing with the Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office (HCADRO). This certificate must come from a medical professional with recent clinical experience in the relevant specialty and must attest that healthcare providers violated standards of care, directly causing the injury.
Proving Negligence
Successful birth injury claims must establish these fundamental elements:
- Standard of Care Deviation: Your attorney must demonstrate that healthcare providers failed to deliver care that met the accepted medical standards and did something they shouldn’t have done or failed to do something required by good medical practice.
- Expert Testimony Role: Birth injuries involve specialized medical knowledge beyond a typical jury’s expertise. Maryland law requires qualified medical experts to explain the appropriate standard of care, how providers violated that standard, and how this deviation directly caused your child’s specific injuries.
Baltimore County courts view this expert testimony as foundational in birth injury cases. These experts review medical records, fetal monitoring strips, and hospital protocols to identify precise moments when substandard care occurred.
Common Causes of Birth Injuries
The common causes of birth injuries in Catonsville are the following:
Failure to Monitor Fetal Distress
Continuous electronic fetal monitoring during labor provides vital information about the baby’s condition. When healthcare providers misinterpret data, ignore warning signs, or fail to communicate concerning patterns, babies may suffer oxygen deprivation, leading to permanent brain damage.
Warning signs requiring prompt response include abnormal heart rate patterns, decreased variability, and late decelerations. When Catonsville medical staff miss these indicators or respond inadequately, even brief oxygen deprivation can cause hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), cerebral palsy, or intellectual disabilities that affect the child throughout life.
Delayed C-Section Delivery
When complications arise during labor, a timely cesarean section often becomes necessary to prevent injury. Common reasons for harmful delays in Catonsville facilities include poor communication between nurses and physicians, staffing shortages during nights and weekends, operating room availability issues, and physician hesitation despite clear warning signs. These preventable delays frequently result in oxygen deprivation and permanent neurological damage.
Improper Use of Delivery Tools
When labor progresses slowly or complications develop, obstetricians sometimes employ forceps or vacuum extractors to assist delivery. These instruments require proper training, careful technique, and appropriate patient selection.
Forceps misapplication can fracture an infant’s skull, damage facial nerves, or cause intracranial bleeding. Vacuum extractors used incorrectly frequently lead to scalp injuries, subgaleal hematomas, or brain hemorrhages. In Catonsville birthing centers, these instrument-related injuries have resulted in permanent conditions, including facial paralysis, developmental delays, and lifelong physical limitations.
Medication Errors During Pregnancy or Labor
Medication mistakes during pregnancy and childbirth pose serious risks. Pitocin (synthetic oxytocin), commonly used to stimulate contractions, requires careful dosing and continuous monitoring. Excessive Pitocin can cause abnormally strong contractions that restrict fetal oxygen supply.
Similarly, improper anesthesia administration can lower maternal blood pressure, reducing placental blood flow. Medication errors occur with concerning frequency in Baltimore County hospitals, often involving calculation mistakes or failure to account for maternal-fetal physiology.
General Medical Negligence
Additional forms of negligent care include:
- Failure to diagnose maternal conditions like preeclampsia or gestational diabetes
- Mismanagement of high-risk pregnancies
- Inadequate response to maternal bleeding
- Improper resuscitation of newborns
- Failure to recognize and treat neonatal infections
When healthcare providers miss these conditions or respond inadequately, both mothers and babies face preventable harm, sometimes with permanent consequences.
