A birth injury claim can be filed if you or your baby was injured during childbirth due to medical negligence. Although it cannot reverse the incident, it can improve your child’s quality of life and help prevent similar incidents in the future.

Our advisors are available to listen and support you during this difficult time.

A birth injury compensation claim can provide financial support and enhance a child’s quality of life after experiencing pain and life-changing impacts due to substandard care.

Key reasons to make a claim include:

• Financial Security: Compensation can cover long-term costs like home modifications, accommodation, schooling, medical equipment, childcare, and transport, aiding in providing necessary care for a child, especially if work ability is affected.
• Ensuring Future Care: It allows you to regain some control over your lives and your baby’s by putting essential measures in place for their future health and well-being.
• Preventing Future Mistakes: Successful claims can highlight systemic issues and prevent similar medical errors, especially in pregnancy and childbirth cases, which are on the rise.
• Seeking Justice and Awareness: While a claim won’t reverse what happened, legal action can aid in recovery, improve a child’s life, raise awareness, and potentially prevent similar experiences for other parents.

Our Legal team understands the challenges of pursuing a claim during difficult times and offers support without pressure.

They can help you by contacting them for free, either by phone or online, and if they believe you have a claim, they can connect you with a specialist birth injury lawyer on a no win, no fee basis.

Making a birth injury compensation claim can be a daunting task for those affected by a birth injury or child loss.

With the right team, you can receive relief from the pain and suffering that may require costly treatment. Compensation for birth injuries can help with:

• Any private care and treatment costs
• Medical equipment
• The cost to friends and family who may have helped you.
• Specialist equipment including adaptations to your home or car.
• Rehabilitation costs and ongoing care costs
• Any loss of earnings
• Pain, suffering, and emotional distress

Final compensation figures will vary case by case, but you could be owed up to millions of pounds if you or your baby has suffered from a birth injury due to medical negligence.

We appreciate that thinking about birth injury compensation claims is complex. We understand taking that first step can be stressful, but we are here to guide you through the process.

You can make a birth injury compensation claim on behalf of your child or yourself, depending on who has been affected. Typically, you will be required to prove:

• That the medical professional provided treatment to you that fell below a reasonable standard of care i.e. the standard of treatment given was such that no responsible doctor would have treated you in the way that you were treated.
• That the birth injury was a direct result of those negligent actions. This is referred to as causation.

Our legal team will listen to you with empathy and give you the time you need to explain what happened. If you believe you are eligible to claim for a birth injury, please make an online enquiry or  contact us today.

If you are making a claim for your own birth injuries, you will have three years to do so. But we would recommend starting the process sooner rather than later.

Seeking legal advice early will help your solicitor gather relevant evidence to support your claim, such as medical records and witness accounts. It may also be easier for you to remember what happened.

How long do birth injury claims take?

Birth injury claims vary widely in duration, from a few months to several years, due to their complexity.

Your solicitor will provide an estimated timeline after reviewing your case and will keep you informed throughout the process.

If the NHS delivered your baby, a body called NHS Resolution will be responsible for paying your compensation.

NHS Resolution has its own budget, and money is put aside every year to cover the cost of payouts. This means that your claim against the NHS will not directly impact their finances.

If you were in the care of a private healthcare provider when you gave birth, it is their insurer that will manage your birth injury compensation claim. All private healthcare organisations have insurance in place to cover claims made against them.

According to the NHS Resolution Annual Report in 2022/2023 at least 80% of clinical claims settled without court proceedings. It is likely that your birth injury claim will not require you to go to court, but you should not rule it out.

If your case does go to court, please do not worry. Our legal experts will be here to guide you calmly through the process, offering our presence, support, and expertise.

As such, you can be confident that we will look after you every step of the way.

Vaginal Tears

Vaginal tears are common during childbirth, with varying degrees of severity. While some, like superficial first-degree tears, heal naturally and quickly, others can be severe and avoidable, leading to prolonged recovery and long-term issues for the mother.

• Second-degree tears, affecting vaginal muscles, typically require stitches and heal in a few weeks.
• The most serious are third and fourth-degree tears, which extend to the anal sphincter and require careful surgical repair.

Uterine Prolapse

Uterine prolapse occurs when the uterus descends into the vaginal canal due to stretched or weakened pelvic floor muscles and ligaments, often after a long, traumatic, or difficult labour, or with a larger baby.

Symptoms include:

• Urinary incontinence,
• Painful intercourse,
• A feeling of heaviness.

Treatment can range from surgical repair of pelvic floor muscles to a hysterectomy (womb removal), which prevents future pregnancies, depending on severity.

Post-Natal depression (PND) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Childbirth injuries aren’t just physical; they can also significantly impact a woman’s mental health.

A negative or stressful birth experience can lead to issues like difficulty bonding with the baby, sleep problems, feelings of guilt, isolation, exhaustion, hopelessness, or failure.

Many mothers suffer silently, but 30% of new mothers experience Postnatal Depression (PND) or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which are serious conditions requiring proper treatment.

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, you can contact the Clinical Negligence team at Oakwood Solicitors for advice on making a claim.

In most cases, doctors and health care providers are legally obligated to notify parents of any apparent birth defects, disabilities or developmental abnormalities identified during pregnancy. This means that most congenital birth defects are not a surprise when the baby is born.

With that in mind, if your baby is born with a totally unexpected injury or disability that might be the first indication that a birth injury occurred. The baby’s general physical condition and appearance immediately after birth is another good indicator.

In many cases, however, the baby may appear fully normal immediately after birth and the signs of their injury do not appear until months or years later. Your paediatrician is in the best position to diagnose a birth injury vs. a birth defect.

Common child birth injuries include:

• Cerebral Palsy: Often caused by oxygen deprivation during birth.
• Erb’s Palsy: Resulting from shoulder dystocia, damaging nerves and muscles in the neck, shoulder, arm, and hand.
• Maternal Injuries: Such as poorly sutured vaginal tears, missed episiotomies, infections, and pre-eclampsia mismanagement.
• Other Devastating Injuries: Including forceps trauma, stillbirths, placental ruptures, and umbilical cord problems.

These injuries generally fall into three categories:

• Orthopaedic and External Damage: Physical injuries like broken bones (e.g., clavicle fractures) and lacerations.
• Nerve Injuries: Damage to nerve channels (e.g., brachial plexus, leading to Erb’s or Klumpke’s palsy) due to stressful childbirth.
• Brain Injuries: Resulting from oxygen deprivation, leading to permanent damage like cerebral palsy.

Once you realize that your baby suffered a birth injury, the natural questions for most parents become how and why. Many parents do not even consider the possibility that their baby’s birth injury might be the result of neonatal care failure, a mistake by the doctors or hospital staff during delivery.

But the fact is that medical negligence is one of the reasons why your baby suffered a birth injury. Even the best doctors make mistakes.

If you think your healthcare providers may have been responsible for the injury, the only way to know for certain is to consult a medical expert and get a formal opinion from them.

Not all birth injuries are the result of medical malpractice or anything the doctors did or did not do during pregnancy or childbirth. Many birth injuries are simply the result of developmental abnormalities or environmental factors that doctors have no control over.

However, a large percentage of birth injuries are directly caused by medical errors or negligent care. Negligent use of forceps or vacuum extractors; delay in performing an emergency C-section; and prenatal diagnostic mistakes are just a few of the many common medical errors that directly cause thousands of preventable birth injuries each year.

The time limit is slightly different if you are claiming on behalf of your child. You will be able to claim compensation at any time before they turn 18. They will then have until they are 21 to take legal action themselves.

Most parents decide to start a claim while their child is still young, as this can help to cover some of the costs associated with additional care and medical treatment.

A birth injury claim for a child can be made by parents or legal guardians on their behalf, up until the child’s 18th birthday. Once the child turns 18, provided they have the mental capacity to do so, they will have until the eve of their 21st birthday to claim.

In most cases relating to maternal or parental birth injury claims, you have three years from the date of the negligent injury to make a birth injury compensation claim.

However, medical negligence claim time limits may be extended if you have a later date of knowledge or if you are claiming on behalf of someone who does not have the mental capacity to make a claim.