San Francisco, California Birth Injury Lawyers

San Francisco Bay Area · Los Angeles · San Diego · Sacramento · San Jose

Expecting and delivering a new baby should be a happy time and a time free from medical complications. However, when negligence by medical professionals results in injuries or death to a newborn, medical malpractice has occurred.

“Birth injuries” can occur at any point during pregnancy, during delivery, and during newborn care immediately following delivery. Improper handling of a baby during delivery can result in loss of oxygen and brain damage.     

Our San Francisco, California birth injury lawyers have helped the parents, grandparents and guardians of children with cerebral palsy, Erbs palsy, mental retardation, seizures, and other injuries that have occurred during birth. We know that children with cerebral palsy require special treatment, occupational therapy, medication and attendant care. With our specialized knowledge of birth trauma and cerebral palsy, we can often prove that doctors were negligent in failing to prevent such injury and brain damage. If you are a parent with a special needs child, there are many resources which may be able to provide you help. If your baby suffered injuries before, during or after birth, our staff (which includes a doctor-lawyer) may be able to help. While cerebral palsy can be caused by things other than birth trauma (including bacterial or viral infections) only experts trained in assessing the management of labor and delivery can determine if your child’s injury was related to birth injury. Our California birth injury attorneys and experts have identified negligence in cases involving difficult forceps deliveries, difficult vacuum extractions, exceptionally long labor and delivery, low amniotic fluid, twisted, compressed or compromised umbilical cords, a baby that is large for its gestational age, a placental abruption, and any other sign of lack of oxygen and/or trauma. Our San Francisco, California birth injury lawyers will analyze electronic fetal heart rate monitoring tapes, and fetal PH scalp sampling, to determine if your infant was properly monitored during the birth process. Contact us if you have questions about your child’s injuries or disabilities, or if you would like to learn more about your child’s right to recover benefits from a negligent wrongdoer.

EXAMPLES OF OUR SUCCESS

Improper Vacuum Delivery - Confidential Settlement 

Our Birth Injury Team achieved a major confidential settlement on behalf of a 3-year-old central coast girl who sustained hypoxic brain injury and cerebral palsy as a result of labor and delivery negligence. Walkup lawyers proved that the mother's obstetrician recognized that the baby's head was in a position that made vaginal delivery dangerous. An assistant , who was less skilled and unfamiliar with the risks presented by the baby's position attempted a vacuum assisted delivery because the baby was demonstrating intermittent episodes of fetal distress. The assistant physician had no experience in delivery via vacuum for fetal distress. Although the standard of care requires immediate delivery by C-section after failed vacuum, the assistant did not proceed to cesarean section. The baby's fetal heart rate crashed, but the hospital nurses did not invoke the "chain of command" to obtain proper response to the situation. The child was ultimately born severely depressed, with permanent and significant neurologic damage.

Improperly Managed Labor – Cerebral Palsy / Brain Injury

Our medical negligence lawyers obtained a settlement having a present cash value over $5,000,000 on behalf of a 6-year-old girl who sustained brain damage and cerebral palsy as a result of injuries occurring during her birth process. The defendant in the case was a national health maintenance organization. The obstetricians employed by the health maintenance organization failed to correctly analyze or appreciate signs of fetal distress as reflected on fetal monitoring tapes. Experts in obstetrics and perinatology testified that a timely cesarean section, occurring 45 minutes or more before the actual birth, would have prevented the child from sustaining anoxic brain damage, and resulting cerebral palsy. The defendant HMO claimed that the obstetrical care provided by its doctors was appropriate and within the standard of care. Attorneys for the HMO attempted to prove that the child’s cerebral palsy was not the result of oxygen deprivation during the labor process, but rather was the result of an infection which the mother experienced one month before her delivery. The settlement amount, when combined with available benefits provided by private insurance and government programs, assured that the child’s medical and special needs would be met regardless of her life expectancy.

Failure To Perform Timely Cesarean Section – $4,100,000 Settlement

In a case involving cerebral palsy, our attorneys obtained a binding arbitration award following a two week arbitration, having a present cash value of $4,100,000 on behalf of a 3-year-old boy afflicted with multiple neurological injuries as a result of negligent delivery. Attorneys from Walkup, Melodia were able to prove that the infant endured a period of oxygen deprivation during his birth when his mother’s uterus ruptured. The uterine rupture was due to an attending midwife’s failure to properly manage the mother while in labor. Walkup attorneys also proved that obstetrical nurses left the mother unattended prior to the rupture of her uterus, and for that reason failed to appreciate ominous signs of the baby’s distress as reported on a fetal heart monitor. Prior to the first day of arbitration, Kaiser had made no settlement offer.

Failure to Recognize Fetal Distress – $5,000,000 Settlement

Walkup attorneys negotiated a cash and annuity settlement with a present cash value in excess of five million dollars on behalf of an infant born with severe developmental delay, spastic quadriparesis, and permanent neurological injuries after doctors and nursing staff failed to monitor the mother and deliver the baby quickly when fetal heart monitors indicated severe distress. The 36-year-old mother’s pregnancy and delivery seemed to be progressing normally when, 8 hours after being admitted to the hospital, she developed a high fever. The doctor on call administered antibiotics for suspected chorioamnionitis (an inflammation of the amniotic membranes) and said he would check back in an hour. Nearly three hours later, the fetal heart rate monitors indicated that the baby’s heart rate had dropped to 85 and 90, and remained there for about 10 minutes, prompting a frightened nurse to contact the doctor. Deceleration of the fetal heart rate is a common effect of chorioamnionitis. The infant was born a half hour later, by emergent vacuum extraction, with no heart rate, and appearing blue, floppy, and apneic. She was resuscitated through chest compressions and intubation. In the days following her birth, the infant exhibited general seizures with tremors in the lower and upper extremities. An MRI performed 8 days after her birth revealed that the infant had severe hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. The child will remain fully dependent for all of her care needs for her entire life. She is not expected to develop beyond the level of a one month old infant. Liability was based upon failure to aggressively monitor the mother and fetus post administration of antibiotics and failure to deliver the baby when infection was first suspected.

Delayed Admittance to Hospital – Cerebral Palsy

The Walkup team obtained a mediated settlement on behalf of a child who suffered profound injuries when her mother’s uterus ruptured at the site of a previous myomectomy (surgery to remove a fibroid in the uterine wall). Two weeks prior to the baby’s emergent delivery, the child’s mother was hospitalized in pre-term labor at Kaiser San Francisco. After being medicated and released, she was advised to observe strict bed rest and communicate with Kaiser’s Pre-Term Birth Prevention Project. At 10:00 p.m. the evening before delivery, the parents called the maternity department to report painful contractions. Without determining the onset, frequency, characteristics or location of the pain suffered by the mother, an on-duty advice nurse advised the mother to take an additional dose of her anti-contraction medication and call if her condition worsened. Eight hours later, the mother awoke in severe pain. Her husband called 911. She was taken to a local hospital where the child was delivered by emergency C-section at 32 weeks gestation. Claimants contended that Kaiser’s employees were negligent in failing to order the mother to the hospital at the time of the phone call. The child was diagnosed with periventricular leukomalacia, and later developed infantile spasms and cerebral palsy. The settlement was composed of both an initial cash payment and guaranteed future annuity payments to offset the cost of future medical, therapy, laboratory and attendant care.

Failure to Recognize Neonatal Hypoglycemia – $2,250,000 Settlement

Walkup attorneys obtained a mediated settlement of $2,250,000 on behalf of a male infant who now suffers from blindness, developmental delay and cognitive deficits, and who also had his pancreas removed, after nursing staff failed to follow proper protocols when the infant showed signs of hypoglycemia. The infant was born weighing 10 pounds, 7-1/2 ounces, which should have triggered a nursing protocol requiring blood screening tests at one, two, four, six and eight hours of age. Any tests revealing low blood sugar levels required that a blood sample be drawn and sent for analysis. In this case, the infant’s six-hour test was conducted at seven hours of age, and came back showing low blood sugar. However, the protocol requiring that blood be drawn and sent to the lab was not followed. The infant’s parents were never told of the abnormal result or warned to look for signs of hypoglycemia. At 24 hours of age, the infant and his parents were discharged. On the second morning at home, his mother had a hard time rousing him, and he presented at Urgent Care lethargic, not nursing, and with purple feet. He then suffered several seizures and was admitted to the hospital. Tests revealed that he had nesidioblastosis, a disease of the pancreas, resulting in profound, unremitting hypoglycemia. An MRI revealed evidence of posterior cerebral artery infarction, consistent with the diagnosis of severe hypoglycemia. Ultimately, nearly all of the infant’s pancreas had to be removed. As a result of his cerebral injury, he was left blind, with developmental delay and cognitive deficiencies. Walkup attorneys retained experts to show that failure to follow the established nursing protocol led to failure to appropriately diagnose and treat the infant’s hypoglycemia, which led to the infant’s cerebral injuries. The settlement in this case was structured to pay monthly guaranteed payments, plus $732,000 to be paid into a trust on the infant’s behalf.

Uterine Rupture – Infant Death

Our medical malpractice lawyers resolved a birth injury case, in a confidential amount, on behalf of the parents of a 2-day-old infant who died after his mother’s uterus ruptured during labor. The mother was admitted to the hospital with contractions, but was sent home several hours later because the nurses felt she was not progressing. Once home, she began to experience severe abdominal pain. By the time doctors realized that the infant was outside the uterus in the abdominal cavity, an emergency cesarean section was unsuccessful in delivering the baby before it suffered severe compromise. The child died two days later. Our attorneys demonstrated that the mother should never have been sent home from the hospital, and that had she been monitored properly, her impending uterine rupture would have been recognized, and a timely cesarean section would have been performed. The claim of our clients sought damages for the wrongful death of their daughter as well as the mother’s personal injuries.

Contact Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger for a FREE CONSULTATION with an experienced San Francisco, California birth injury lawyer.