Recent news of midwifery negligence in Northern Lincolnshire has brought a lot of questions and concerns regarding midwife negligence.
Over the last ten years, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust paid nearly £12m in damages for midwifery negligence. Over this ten-year period, a total of £4.2bn in damages was paid nationally across 7,839 closed or settled midwifery negligence claims.
Our expert medical negligence solicitors will explain what a potential midwife negligence case could be and how we can help in these situations.
Midwives are trained to recognise any potential risks or anything strange with your pregnancy and labour but sadly, sometimes mistakes can be made and can have devastating consequences.
Midwife negligence happens when mistakes made by a midwife during pregnancy, labour or after the birth result in injury to you or your child.
Some examples of midwife negligence:
- Serious conditions are not diagnosed or properly treated during the pregnancy.
- Lack of communication between the midwife, parents and healthcare professionals.
- Failure to act on problems with the baby’s heart rate during labour.
- Trauma to the baby’s head during birth.
- Injuries caused due to mismanagement of labour.
- Failure to diagnose signs of infections.
- Failure to recognise which stage of labour a mother is in.
In any situation where the actions or inactions of your midwife resulted in unnecessary damage or distress to you or the baby, then you may be able to claim midwife negligence compensation. Even if your baby is healthy, the long-term impact of midwife negligence can be devastating for a family. Negligence can also cause psychological trauma to the mother such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Making a midwife negligence claim:
You can make a claim when there has been a breach of duty of care from your midwife during your pregnancy, labour or after birth including care received after discharge. If negligence resulted in injuries to the mother, you have three years from the date of the negligence or birth or in some cases three years from the date you became aware of the injury. In respect of a child, you have three years from the child’s eighteenth birthday.
To make a successful claim you need to prove liability, so, if possible, make sure you collect any medical records, financial documents, statements or reports you might have.
How we can help:
Midwife negligence can have many affects to your and your baby’s life so it’s really important to seek legal advice from experienced negligence solicitors that can recognise your injuries and the impacts of the negligence in ways you might have not even thought about.
Get in touch for a free confidential chat with one of our experts who can give you advice on your case and let you know how we can help you. Our solicitors will strive to get you the compensation for the mental or physical pain you have experienced, for your treatment costs, for ongoing support, for any loss of earnings and more.
Please use our contact form to make an enquiry.