Baltimore Labor & Delivery Negligence Lawyer
Obstetric medicine is part science and part art, and a particular outcome is never entirely predictable nor guaranteed. Doctors aren’t miracle workers, and they aren’t required by law to provide the very best care imaginable, but only to practice with the same skill and care expected of other obstetricians in the Baltimore community. Not every bad outcome at the hospital is the result of negligence or a medical mistake, but oftentimes it is. While a perfect delivery can’t be expected 100% of the time, it is perfectly rational to expect doctors and nurses to perform their job with a reasonable degree of skill and care, and to hold them accountable when they don’t.
Hospitals, too, must do their part to ensure their maternity wards and birthing rooms are adequately staffed, and that nurses and other health care workers receive the proper training and supervision needed to do their job well. Delivery rooms and equipment should be sanitary and stocked with everything they need, and hospitals should implement and enforce best practices and protocols so doctors and nurses can perform their jobs safely and to the best of their abilities.
The Baltimore labor & delivery negligence lawyers at Wais, Vogelstein, Forman, Koch & Norman have over 150 years of combined experience dealing with medical malpractice and birth injury cases. Our attorneys have handled cases involving every common and not so common form of birth injury, including all manner of labor and delivery negligence. If you believe that your child suffered an injury because of a medical error during labor or delivery, we can help determine what happened and hold the doctor and hospital liable for any negligence on their part that was responsible for the injury. Call our office for a free consultation if your child was injured during labor or delivery at a Baltimore hospital, and we’ll take steps to seek justice and accountability for you and your baby.
What Is Labor and Delivery Negligence?
The delivery of a baby is one of the most common procedures performed in a hospital, so it’s reasonable to expect hospital staff to function together well and perform their duties competently and carefully. It’s true that there are many ways that labor and delivery can go wrong, but if fetal and maternal monitoring has been done properly, any likely complications can be known in advance and planned for.
Examples of labor and delivery negligence leading to serious injury include:
- Failure to order a c-section in a timely manner, or to perform one at all
- Failure to have an operating room or other emergency facility available
- Failure to call the obstetrician in a timely manner
- Failure to have adequate, trained staff on duty or on-call
- Intubation errors when a baby is born in severe respiratory distress (wrong size endotracheal tube selected, negligent placement, failure to monitor)
- Undiagnosed or misdiagnosed arrest disorders (arrest of descent, arrest of dilatation)
- Failure to monitor vital signs
- Pitocin or other medication errors, failure to administer medication
- Lack of communication among hospital staff or with the mother
- Failure to have appropriate staff present at a premature birth
How Our Baltimore Birth Injury Lawyers Can Help
At Wais, Vogelstein, Forman, Koch & Norman, our medical malpractice attorneys have been helping birth injury victims for decades recover compensation from doctors and hospitals for labor and delivery negligence. We’ve achieved four out of the top five birth injury medical malpractice verdicts and settlements in Maryland, and one of those is the largest medical malpractice birth injury verdict or settlement ever achieved in the United States. We’ll put the same effort into your case that we put into those cases, and the hospitals and medical providers on the other side of your case know it.
While getting significant results for our clients is a paramount part of our job, we take just as much time and effort into seeing that our clients are getting the care and support they need to get through this difficult time in their family. The relationships we foster with our clients continue long after the case is over because they know they found a law firm that truly cares about them and their wellbeing.
If you believe that medical negligence during labor or delivery in a Baltimore hospital was the cause of a birth injury suffered by your child, call Wais, Vogelstein, Forman, Koch & Norman for a free consultation at 410-998-3600. We’ll get to the bottom of what went wrong and hold the responsible parties accountable to you for their mistakes.
