The instant a birth injury occurs, your family’s path changes forever. For Dundalk parents watching their newborn struggle through treatments that should never have been necessary, each day brings a painful mixture of worry, anger, and unanswered questions.
Behind the medical terminology and hospital explanations often lies an uncomfortable truth: your child’s suffering might have been completely preventable. A Dundalk birth injury attorney does far more than file paperwork. They become your family’s voice when medical institutions refuse to accept responsibility.
At Schochor, Staton, Goldberg and Cardea, P.A., our attorneys have helped countless Maryland families transform heartbreak into action, securing the financial resources necessary for their children’s brightest possible futures.
Common Causes of Birth Injuries Leading to Claims
The common causes of birth injuries in Dundalk include:
Medical Negligence During Childbirth
When healthcare providers fail to follow established medical protocols during labor and delivery, newborns suffer preventable harm that often results in permanent disabilities.
- Failure to Monitor Fetal Distress: Labor and delivery staff must vigilantly monitor fetal heart rates and other vital signs to detect early warning signals of oxygen deprivation. When physicians or nurses misread monitoring strips or delay responding to concerning patterns, babies may experience hypoxic injuries leading to cerebral palsy, developmental delays, or intellectual impairments.
- Improper Use of Delivery Instruments: When deliveries become challenging, physicians sometimes use tools or devices. Forceps applied with excessive force may fracture an infant’s skull, damage facial nerves, or cause intracranial bleeding. Vacuum extractors used incorrectly can result in scalp injuries, dangerous bleeding beneath the skull, or permanent nerve damage.
- Delayed Emergency Cesarean Sections: When complications threaten a baby’s oxygen supply, immediate surgical intervention often prevents permanent brain injury. Medical research demonstrates that babies delivered with undue delay after the decision for an emergency C-section face substantially higher risks of neurological damage. These unnecessary delays typically occur when hospital staff fails to recognize urgent situations, communication breakdowns occur between nurses and physicians, or facilities lack adequate surgical resources.
- Medication and Anesthesia Errors: Proper medication dosing during labor requires precision and careful monitoring. Common medication mistakes include incorrect Pitocin administration, causing excessive contractions that restrict fetal oxygen, improper epidural placement leading to maternal blood pressure drops affecting fetal well-being, and anesthesia errors during cesarean deliveries affecting newborn respiratory function.
These typically stem from procedural shortcuts, communication failures, or inadequate patient monitoring during critical periods.
External Accidents Affecting Mother and Unborn Child
Birth injuries sometimes result from external causes beyond traditional medical negligence:
- Car Accidents Involving Pregnant Mothers: Vehicle collisions involving pregnant women can cause placental separation, premature labor, or direct trauma to the developing baby. Even seemingly minor accidents require immediate medical evaluation, as injuries may not be immediately apparent but can cause significant fetal harm.
- Exposure to Harmful Substances: Pregnant women exposed to toxic chemicals, unsafe medications, or defective products may suffer adverse effects that harm their unborn children. In Dundalk’s industrial areas, workplace exposures occasionally contribute to birth complications or congenital conditions.
These cases may involve claims against employers who failed to provide adequate protective equipment, manufacturers of dangerous products, or property owners who neglected to warn about hazardous conditions affecting pregnant women.
Hospital and Provider Liability
Birth injury claims often involve multiple responsible parties:
- Hospital Negligence: Healthcare facilities serving Dundalk residents may bear direct responsibility for systemic failures contributing to birth injuries, including insufficient staffing in labor units, inadequate training of medical personnel, outdated safety procedures, or faulty equipment maintenance. When hospitals create conditions that increase injury risks, they share liability for resulting harm.
- Vicarious Liability of Hospitals: Under Maryland law, hospitals generally bear responsibility for the negligent actions of their employees, including nurses, technicians, and residents. This principle ensures that injured families can seek compensation from institutions with substantial resources rather than solely from individual providers who may lack adequate insurance coverage.
Understanding Negligence in Dundalk Birth Injury Cases
Establishing Duty of Care
All birth injury claims begin by showing that healthcare providers owed a duty to both mother and baby. When a doctor-patient relationship exists, providers must deliver care meeting accepted medical standards. This obligation covers all aspects of maternal and neonatal care, from prenatal monitoring through delivery and immediate newborn care.
Breach of Duty
After establishing duty, birth injury claims must demonstrate that providers delivered substandard care through inappropriate actions or critical omissions. Maryland law requires healthcare professionals to provide treatment that meets the level expected of reasonably skilled practitioners with similar training under comparable circumstances.
Birth injury attorneys work with medical experts to identify precisely how care deviated from accepted practices, often comparing actual treatment against clinical guidelines published by major medical organizations or hospital protocols.
Causation
Successful claims must establish a direct link between the provider’s negligence and the resulting birth injury. This causal connection requires addressing defense arguments that injuries stemmed from unavoidable complications, genetic factors, or other causes unrelated to the care provided.
Medical experts analyze records, monitoring data, and diagnostic results to trace the sequence of events leading to injury, identifying where proper care would have prevented harm. This evidence creates the foundation for establishing that negligence directly caused the child’s condition.
Damages
Birth injury claims must document the actual harm suffered and its financial implications. Attorneys work with medical specialists, life care planners, and economic experts to calculate the full extent of current costs and future needs, including medical expenses, therapeutic interventions, specialized education, necessary equipment, and diminished earning capacity.
Maryland law requires a certificate from a qualified medical expert confirming that care violated professional standards and caused the injury. This certificate must accompany the initial claim filed with Maryland’s Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office.
