Over the years Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo, P.C., New York medical malpractice firm has represented many parents who have brought lawsuits to recover money damages for injuries sustained by their children at the time of birth. These are heart wrenching stories of injuries to infants which could have been avoided.

The two (2) most typical types of cases are the Erb’s Palsy injury and the brain damaged baby case. You can recognize someone who has Erb’ s Palsy- they usually have a shriveled arm and hand.

Medical malpractice is defined in the law as a departure from accepted medical practice. That is, a doctor did (or did not do) that which a reasonable doctor would have done under similar circumstances. A mere error in judgment is not medical malpractice. These cases usually require a medical expert along with medical malpractice lawyers, in the same field of specialty as the doctor being sued, to testify in Court that a doctor’s treatment fell below the accepted standards of practice.

Typically, what occurs in the Erb’s Palsy case is that a baby is too large to come through the birth canal or in some other manner the shoulder becomes stuck by the mother’s pelvic bone. If a doctor does not know the correct maneuvers for extricating the shoulder he or she can, by executing too much force injure the brachial plexus (the nerve which is located over the shoulder) and cause problem’s in the arm’s development. There can be different degrees of severity of this injury. At the low end some Erb Palsy’s patients can be treated with physical therapy even with newborns) to the most severe which appear as shriveled up and useless arms and hands. This law firm has handled many of these cases.

Another typical medical malpractice case that we handle is the brain damaged baby. Very typically what happens in these cases is that the fetal heart monitor shows that the baby is in distress because of oxygen deprivation. In many cases this calls for an emergency cesarean Section to avoid the effects of oxygen deprivation to the brain. This is not performed immediately the baby can be born with an array of neurological deficits.