Pennsylvania Birth Injury Attorneys

A birth injury diagnosis is difficult on your whole family. When something goes wrong at birth, your family must cope with the lasting consequences of a birth injury.

As birth injury lawyers serving Pennsylvania, the team at ABC Law Centers stands ready to guide your family through the aftermath of a preventable delivery-room error. 

We combine 25+ years of focused experience with compassionate advocacy to investigate your case, secure top medical experts, and pursue the compensation your child needs, on a 100% contingency fee basis, so you only pay legal fees if we recover compensation for you.

A mistake made in a delivery room in Harrisburg or a failure to act in a hospital in Scranton can leave a child with a lifetime of challenges. You deserve to understand what happened and who is responsible. At ABC Law Centers, our entire firm is dedicated to helping families like yours navigate this difficult path and secure the resources needed for your child’s future.

When your child’s future is at stake, choosing the right legal team is crucial. Birth injury cases are a highly complex intersection of medicine and law, demanding a level of knowledge and experience that a general practice firm may not possess.

ABC Law Centers is different by design. Our firm was created with a singular mission: to advocate for children injured at birth due to medical malpractice.

Here is how our dedicated focus can benefit your family:

• Unmatched Experience: For over 25 years, our firm has focused only on birth injury cases. This dedication has allowed us to develop a deep understanding of the medical issues and legal strategies essential to proving negligence and securing justice for our clients.
• A National Firm with a Pennsylvania Focus: We represent families across the United States. To provide the best possible representation in Pennsylvania, we partner with respected local counsel, combining our firm’s deep subject matter experience with local procedural knowledge.
• A Legacy of Securing Futures: Our attorneys have a track record of winning multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements. These results are not just numbers; they represent a lifetime of care, therapy, adaptive equipment, and opportunity for the children we represent.
• Your Compassionate Partner: A lawsuit is probably the last thing you ever expected. Our team approaches every case with empathy and understanding, shouldering the legal burden so you can focus on what truly matters—caring for your child. We handle all cases on a contingency fee basis, so you pay no legal fees unless we recover compensation for you.

A birth injury case is a type of medical malpractice lawsuit that holds a healthcare provider or institution accountable for causing preventable harm to a child around the time of birth. The foundation of every case is the “standard of care,” which is the level of caution and skill that a reasonably competent medical professional would provide under similar circumstances. When a doctor, nurse, or hospital’s conduct falls below this standard and causes an injury, they have been negligent.

It is crucial to distinguish a preventable birth injury from a birth defect. A birth defect typically forms during pregnancy due to genetic or unknown factors. A birth injury, however, is damage that occurs during the birthing process because of a medical mistake. These injuries are often preventable, and when negligence is involved, your family has the right to seek justice.

Medical errors during labor and delivery can lead to a wide range of devastating conditions. Our firm has extensive experience helping families whose children have been diagnosed with:

• Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE): A serious brain injury caused when the baby’s brain is deprived of oxygen and blood flow. This is a common result of a delayed C-section or untreated umbilical cord complications.
• Cerebral Palsy (CP): A group of permanent movement disorders that are often caused by brain damage from HIE or other trauma during birth.
• Seizure Disorders: Seizures in a newborn are a critical warning sign of an underlying brain injury.
• Erb’s Palsy / Brachial Plexus Injuries: Nerve damage to the shoulder, arm, and hand, frequently caused by excessive force used during a difficult delivery.
• Periventricular Leukomalacia (PVL): Damage and decay of the brain’s white matter, which can lead to developmental delays and motor deficits.
• Kernicterus: A preventable form of brain damage caused by severe, untreated newborn jaundice.

After a traumatic birth and a life-altering diagnosis, it is natural to question everything. You may wonder if your child’s condition was just an unavoidable tragedy or if something went wrong. Finding the answer is essential for your peace of mind and your child’s future.

While only a thorough review by a skilled legal and medical team can confirm malpractice, certain events are powerful indicators that a preventable error may have occurred. Consider if your delivery experience in Pennsylvania involved any of these red flags:

• Your baby needed emergency help to breathe. This could involve resuscitation with a mask and bag or intubation with a breathing tube.
• Your baby received cooling therapy. Also known as hypothermia therapy, a specific treatment for newborns suspected of having suffered HIE.
• Your baby experienced seizures in the hours or days following birth.
• There were signs of distress at birth. Your baby may have been born limp, floppy, or with a blue or gray skin color (cyanosis).
• Your baby’s APGAR scores were low, especially at five and ten minutes after birth.
• There was a chaotic or frantic atmosphere in the delivery room, or a long, unexplained delay before an emergency C-section was performed.
• Your baby required a long stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
• As your child grows, they are missing key developmental milestones related to motor skills, speech, or cognitive function.

If any of these situations resonate with you, it is vital to have the circumstances of your child’s birth investigated. You have a right to know the truth.

Identifying all responsible parties is a critical step in building a strong birth injury case. Accountability may rest with a single individual, or it may be shared among several people and the institution where the injury occurred. Our team can provide a deep investigation to uncover the full chain of negligence.

In Pennsylvania, liability in a birth injury claim can extend to:

• Obstetricians and Physicians: The primary doctor overseeing the pregnancy and delivery can be held liable for errors such as misinterpreting fetal heart monitor data, failing to order a timely C-section, or mismanaging a high-risk condition.
• Nurses, Midwives, and Medical Staff: Labor and delivery nurses are responsible for closely monitoring both mother and baby. A failure to recognize developing problems or to properly communicate urgent information to the physician can be a direct cause of harm.
• Hospitals and Medical Facilities: A hospital or healthcare system, from a major university medical center to a local community hospital, can be held directly liable for its own “corporate negligence.” This includes failures in training, staffing, or having inadequate policies and procedures to ensure patient safety.
• Anesthesiologists: An anesthesiology error in dosage or administration of an epidural can cause a dangerous drop in the mother’s blood pressure, reducing vital oxygen flow to the baby’s brain.

The team at ABC Law Centers works with leading medical experts to conduct a comprehensive review of all medical records to ensure every negligent party is held accountable.

The NICU, or Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, provides supportive services, premature birth care, and breathing assistance. Most providers will use therapeutic hypothermia, also called neonatal cooling, to treat a child diagnosed with HIE. Cooling helps the baby’s brain recover from the injury and minimizes the damage. However, medical staff must treat the baby right after birth.

Not all NICUs can provide this kind of care for HIE. Your child may need to go to another facility for the appropriate treatment. Level III or Level IV NICUs provide the specialized care that a baby with a birth injury typically needs.

If your child suffered a serious birth injury, they likely required specialized care in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Pennsylvania is home to many excellent medical facilities, including some of the nation’s top-level NICUs, which are equipped to handle the most critical cases.

Depending on the severity of a baby’s injury, they may require care in a high-level Level IV or Level III NICU. Some of Pennsylvania’s notable NICUs include:

Level IV NICUs:

• Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)
• St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children (Philadelphia)
• UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh

Level III NICUs:

• Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital (Allentown)
• Penn State Health Children’s Hospital (Hershey)
• Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital (Danville)
• UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital (Pittsburgh)
• Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) (Philadelphia)
• Thomas Jefferson University Hospital (Philadelphia)

Unfortunately, medical errors can happen even in the most advanced facilities. If you believe your child’s care was mismanaged in a hospital or NICU, we can investigate what happened.

Community support benefits both your child and your whole family. These organizations host programs for education, recreation, and advocacy. They also provide an understanding community for parents.

• UCP Central PA: Offers a wide range of services, support, and advocacy for people with disabilities, including CP.
  • United Cerebral Palsy of NEPA
• About United Disabilities Service Foundation (UDSF)
• Who We Are – PA Promise for Children
• Parent to Parent of PA
• PA Families Inc – About
• PaTTAN – Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network – Significant Cognitive Disabilities
• Disability Rights Pennsylvania
• Pennsylvania Disability Resources, Programs & Services

The government provides several support systems for families and children with disabilities. Rather than private groups, various state agencies offer these programs.

• Services for Persons with Disabilities – This list of help from the government includes home care, voting, employment, and more.
• Welcome to the HCSIS Services and Supports Directory – This directory sorts services by county.
• Special Kids Network – A state-sponsored helpline tool for parents to find resources and support systems.
• Get support for a child with special health care needs | Services | City of Philadelphia – The Department of Health lists resources in the city of Philadelphia.

At ABC Law Centers, we handle all cases on a contingency fee basis. This means you pay absolutely no upfront fees. We cover all litigation costs, and we only receive legal fees if we recover compensation through a settlement or verdict in your favor.

Not necessarily. Because of Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations for minors, you generally have until your child’s 20th birthday to file a lawsuit. It is never too late to investigate, even if your child is a toddler or school-aged.

A successful lawsuit can provide compensation for a lifetime of needs, including all medical care, therapies, adaptive equipment, special education, in-home attendant care, and damages for your child’s pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life.

No. The most important factor is a lawyer’s experience and focus on birth injury cases. Our national firm performs the primary legal work and partners with trusted local Pennsylvania counsel for court appearances, giving you the best of both worlds: deep, focused experience and local procedural knowledge. Our attorneys will travel to you to collaborate with local counsel and provide personal attention to your case and your family.

Your child deserves a future with every possible opportunity. Securing that future starts with getting answers and holding negligent parties accountable. The team at ABC Law Centers has the experience, resources, and unwavering dedication to fight for the justice your family deserves. Our exclusive focus on birth injury law gives us the perspective and knowledge necessary to handle these complex cases effectively.

Do not carry this burden alone. Let us help you find the truth and secure the resources your child needs to thrive. Contact us today for a free, compassionate, and confidential case evaluation.