Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE) Lawyer
Medical professionals who provide substandard care or fail to act during pregnancy can be held accountable for resulting birth injuries such as hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. The trusted HIE lawyers at the Birth Injury Center will launch an investigation, consult medical experts, and build a strong case to get you the compensation you deserve.
- Last Updated Date: September 22, 2023
Why You Need a Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy Lawyer
How Do I Know if My Infant Has Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy?
Who Is Liable for My Child’s HIE Brain Injury?
How To Prove Medical Negligence After an HIE Brain Injury
What Damages Can You Recover After an HIE Brain Injury Lawsuit?
What Is the Statute of Limitations for an HIE Brain Injury Claim?
Get in Touch With the Birth Injury Center for Outstanding Legal Representation
Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, or HIE, is an infant brain injury due to oxygen deprivation and poor blood flow into the brain during birth. This condition has lifelong impacts, including cognitive issues, vision and hearing impairments, cerebral palsy, and even death. All this can significantly affect your financial and emotional well-being as a parent.
One of the leading causes of HIE is medical negligence before, during, or after the birthing process. Medical providers who offer substandard care during birth can cause a child to develop hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. If your newborn was diagnosed with an HIE brain injury, the medical team might be responsible for your child’s suffering. Reach out to an HIE lawyer at the Birth Injury Center to determine if you have a case and discuss the best way to seek compensation.
Contact a lawyer for a free case evaluation today!
Why You Need a Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy Lawyer
Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy is a severe condition that will likely require a lifetime of special care for surviving children. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly difficult to establish the exact cause of your child’s HIE and whether it involved medical malpractice. Pursuing compensation without proper legal counsel could result in an insufficient settlement or an outright dismissal of your case.
Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy lawyers at the Birth Injury Center have extensive experience litigating similar birth injury claims. We understand you and your child’s rights, the lifelong costs of HIE on a child and the parent, and how aggressive legal representation can result in the best possible outcome for your family. We have a network of medical expert witnesses who can offer their wealth of knowledge to determine whether a physician’s actions caused your newborn’s HIE.
The attorneys at the Birth Injury Center understand the impact of HIE on a parent and their child. We have experience protecting the rights of birth injury victims and recovering damages for their losses from negligent medical providers.
How Do I Know if My Infant Has Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy?
Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy can occur anytime during pregnancy, labor, and the postnatal period. During pregnancy, a doctor can use ultrasound scans to detect fetal distress signals that indicate the likelihood of HIE. Other common signs and symptoms of HIE during and after delivery include:
- Seizures
- Breathing problems and needing assistance to breathe
- Low heart rates
- Unresponsiveness to sights and sounds
- Strong reaction to stimuli
- A weak cry
- Blue or pale skin during birth
- Low Apgar birth scores
- Requiring resuscitation after birth
- Abnormal neurological exam results
Who Is Liable for My Child's HIE Brain Injury?
Because an HIE brain injury can occur during pregnancy, delivery, and postnatal, any health care provider who cared for you can be liable for your child’s brain injury. It’s difficult to ascertain precisely when the condition developed, so an HIE lawyer will consult medical experts to obtain solid evidence and build a strong case strategy.
The first thing an attorney will do to establish liability is to determine when and how the injury occurred.
Causes of HIE brain injury during pregnancy include the following:
- Fetal anemia
- Consumption of alcohol and drugs during pregnancy
- Fetal infection
- Uterine rupture
- Vascular disease
- Placenta abruption
Causes of HIE brain injury during birth include the following:
- Failure to perform a cesarean section promptly
- Prolapse of the umbilical cord
- Delayed delivery
- Failure to monitor the infant’s heartbeat
- Compression of the umbilical cord
Causes of HIE brain injury after birth include the following:
- Failure to perform treatment measures such as cooling therapy for HIE
- Infection
- Severe heart or lung disease
- Premature birth
How To Prove Medical Negligence After an HIE Brain Injury
Not all cases of an HIE brain injury result from a medical professional’s negligence, but many are. Medical negligence or malpractice occurs when one or both of the following happens:
- A health care professional fails to provide reasonable care that another professional would in the same situation.
- A health care professional fails to act and causes harm to a patient.
The Birth Injury Center has professionals who can answer your questions and analyze your case. We can connect you with an experienced hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy lawyer who can investigate and prove malpractice caused your child’s HIE.
A hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy lawyer will seek evidence to demonstrate the following elements:
- The reasonable care a similarly trained medical professional would have offered in that situation
- Proof that the defendant didn’t provide this standard of care
- Evidence of injuries and other expected damages in the child’s life due to the failure to provide this standard of care
What Damages Can You Recover After an HIE Brain Injury Lawsuit?
Birth injury lawsuit settlements ensure parents do not pay for the resulting medical conditions out of their own pockets. You can receive monetary compensation to cover medical expenses through a lawsuit and hold the negligent party accountable.
Depending on your case, you can recover economic and non-economic damages. Sometimes, a judge will also award punitive damages to punish and deter the defendant from similar actions.
Examples of damages you can recover for an HIE brain injury lawsuit include:
- Past, current, and future medical treatment costs
- Assistive devices to help your child live normally
- Lost income when a parent has to stop working and take care of the child
- Pain and suffering
- Loss of consortium
- Emotional distress
- Physical therapy
- Costs for special education
- Surgeries and other treatments
- Prescription drugs
- Funeral and burial expenses in case of wrongful death
What Is the Statute of Limitations for an HIE Brain Injury Claim?
The statute of limitations for your child’s birth injuries will mainly depend on your state of residence. Other factors determining how long a parent has to file an HIE brain injury lawsuit are whether the case involves an injury or death and whether the condition was discovered immediately. In cases where the parent cannot sue on behalf of their infant, the court will wait until the child has attained 18 years of age.
Consulting a hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy attorney at the Birth Injury Center as early as possible increases the chances of a maximized settlement. Our team will have sufficient time to gather evidence and build a strong case.
Get in Touch With the Birth Injury Center for Outstanding Legal Representation
Birth injuries can be devastatingly life-altering, but you don’t have to deal with them alone. The compassionate legal team at BIC helps parents whose newborns have suffered a hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy brain injury. We strive to deliver you justice through sound legal counsel and aggressive representation.
Contact the team at BIC today so you don’t miss out on potential compensation for your child’s injuries.
Written by:
Birth Injury Center Team
The Birth Injury Center aims to create informational web content and guides to help women and their families seeking support and guidance for birth injuries caused by medical negligence. All of the content published across The Birth Injury Center website has been thoroughly investigated and approved by medical expert Natalie Speer, RNC-OB, Attorney Ryan Mahoney.
