What To Expect From Your Intake With Reiter & Walsh ABC Law Centers

Here at Reiter & Walsh ABC Law Centers, we understand that making initial contact with legal professionals regarding your child’s birth injury can be confusing and uncomfortable. To ease your concerns, we assembled this guide to show you exactly what our intake process entails.

During the intake process, our team will gather information about your unique situation. They will ask questions that help us to understand your story and better assist you moving forward. Our intake interview covers information in four main areas, which we discuss in detail below. These questions are simply to help us get an understanding of the situation from your point-of-view; you are not expected to have answers for all of these questions.

At Reiter & Walsh ABC Law Centers we receive calls from all types of people. Most often the parents of a child with a birth injury will make this initial call, but frequently we receive calls from extended family members or close friends. Our intake team is prepared and happy to take calls from all of these parties.

The Pregnancy and Prenatal Period

To comprehend the full extent of your case, our team feels it is important to understand how your pregnancy evolved from the earliest days. These questions help us learn about your situation before the birth of your child. The questions our intake team will ask include:

What is the name of the child you are contacting us about?
What date was your child born?
Where did the birth occur?
Was the baby full term? How many weeks gestation were you in your pregnancy?
How many pregnancies have you had?
- Were these children delivered vaginally?
- Were there any complications with these earlier pregnancies?
- Are your other children healthy and doing well?
Where did you seek prenatal care? Who was your prenatal care provider?
Did you have any health conditions prior to this pregnancy?
- Did you have diabetes?
- Did you have blood pressure problems?
- Did you have blood clotting or other blood disorder problems?
Were you ever told that you had a high risk pregnancy?
Were there any problems during pregnancy?
Were ultrasounds performed during your pregnancy?
- How many?
- What were the results of those ultrasounds?
What was your pre-pregnancy weight?
How much weight did you gain during the pregnancy?

The Labor and Delivery Process

Injuries can often occur during the labor and delivery process, so our intake team will gather information about your labor and delivery. Our team will want to know about the events of your delivery. They may ask questions like:

What made you go to the hospital?
Who was there with you?
How long were you in labor?
Were there concerns about the baby’s heart rate on the fetal monitor?
How long did you push?
Was a c-section ordered?
Did the baby get stuck?
Were forceps or vacuum extractors used at any point during the delivery?

The Postnatal Period

After the birth of a baby, proper in-hospital postnatal assessment and subsequent care are crucial for the healthy development of a child. Our intake team will gather information about your family’s postnatal care by asking the following questions. Again, you are not required or expected to have answers for all of these questions before your call.

What was your baby’s birth weight?
What were your baby’s Apgar scores? (A score from 1-10 of how well the baby was doing at various points after birth)
What was the appearance of your baby at birth?
- What was your baby’s color?
- Did he or she cry right away?
- Did your baby have any trouble breathing?
Did your child experience any seizures after birth?
Do you know if your baby was given antibiotics or other medications after birth?
How long was your baby in the nursery or neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) after birth?
- While in the nursery or NICU, did your child require intubation or help breathing?
- Did your baby receive cooling therapy after birth?
Were any labs or testing done on your child after birth that came back abnormal?
- Did your child have high bilirubin or jaundice?
- Did your child have abnormal blood sugar?
- Did your baby have an abnormal spinal tap?

Your Child’s Development

Depending on the age of your child, our intake team may ask you questions about his or her development since birth. These questions help us to understand how your child has progressed since birth and what he or she may be struggling with. Some of these questions include:

Is your child missing any milestones?
- Does your child hold her or his head up?
- Is your child rolling over?
- Is your child having trouble feeding?
- Is your child having trouble crawling or walking?
- Is your child having trouble grasping or turning objects?
- Is your child having trouble tracking objects with his or her eyes?
If your child is in school, what grade or class is he or she in? Does your child require special education or other resources?
What doctors is your child currently seeing?
Does your child require physical, occupational, and/or speech therapy?
Has your child had any head imaging done?
- When was the imaging done?
- What did the imaging show?
Has your child had any surgeries?
Will your child require any surgeries in the future that you know of?

All of these questions are designed to provide our legal professionals with a snapshot of your unique story and case so they can help you in the future. Again, it is not important that you have answers to all these questions. Give us a call and we will be happy to start the intake process with you.