Bringing a child into the world should be one of life’s most joyful experiences. Families trust doctors, nurses, and hospitals to provide safe and attentive care during childbirth. But when medical professionals in Owings Mills make preventable mistakes, the results can be devastating for both mother and child. An experienced Owings Mills birth injury lawyer can hold negligent providers accountable and pursue the compensation your child needs for medical care and a secure future.
While some complications arise naturally, many birth injuries are preventable and result from medical negligence during pregnancy, labor, or delivery. Taking action quickly helps protect your family’s rights and ensures your child has access to the long-term care they will need. If your child suffered harm during delivery at an Owings Mills area hospital, skilled legal representation is essential for navigating Maryland’s complex medical malpractice system.
Contact Furman Honick Law at (410) 844-6000 for a free consultation about your birth injury case. Our Owings Mills birth injury attorneys have the experience and determination to handle both the medical and legal challenges involved, fighting tirelessly to obtain the compensation your family needs.
Key Takeaways for Owings Mills Birth Injury Cases
- Birth injuries are often linked to preventable medical errors during pregnancy, labor, or delivery, while natural complications may occur despite proper care.
- Under Maryland law, children with birth injuries may file medical malpractice claims up until their 21st birthday.
- Successful cases require strong medical evidence, expert testimony, and a thorough review of hospital records.
- Compensation may cover medical expenses, lifelong care, lost wages, home modifications, and educational needs.
- Early legal consultation helps preserve evidence and build a stronger case.
How Furman Honick Law Helps Owings Mills Birth Injury Families
Furman Honick Law brings over a decade of experience handling complex birth injury cases throughout Maryland, including Owings Mills and surrounding Baltimore County communities. Our legal team understands that birth injuries create both immediate medical crises and long-term financial challenges that can overwhelm families.
Allen Honick and Dustin Furman personally handle each birth injury case from initial investigation through trial or settlement. This approach means you work directly with experienced trial attorneys who have recovered millions of dollars for birth injury clients, including multi-million dollar medical malpractice settlements.
Our firm's "Fewer Cases, Bigger Results" philosophy allows us to dedicate the time and resources needed to build strong birth injury cases. We collaborate with leading medical experts, neonatologists, and life care planners to document the full extent of your child's injuries and future care needs.
Located just minutes from Owings Mills at our Red Run Boulevard office, we serve families throughout Baltimore County and understand the local healthcare landscape. We work with families receiving care at nearby medical facilities and have extensive experience with Maryland's birth injury laws and medical malpractice procedures, helping parents file a birth injury lawsuit when medical negligence causes lasting harm.
Common Birth Injuries in Owings Mills Malpractice Cases
Birth injuries can occur at any stage of pregnancy, labor, or delivery when medical professionals overlook warning signs or fail to respond to complications. Understanding the most common injuries helps families recognize when medical negligence may have been a factor.
Cerebral Palsy and Birth Injury Lawsuits
This serious condition is often caused by oxygen deprivation during delivery and can lead to permanent motor disabilities. In many cases, it results from failures to monitor fetal heart rates or delays in performing a cesarean section.
Brachial Plexus and Erb’s Palsy Claims
These injuries affect the nerves that control the arm and hand, often occurring when excessive force is used during delivery or shoulder dystocia is not handled properly. Erb’s palsy, a type of brachial plexus injury, may cause partial or complete paralysis in the affected arm.
Brain Injuries and Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE) Cases
Restricted blood and oxygen flow to the brain can cause conditions such as hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). Depending on severity, these injuries may result in seizures, developmental delays, or lifelong neurological challenges, and families may be able to recover in a birth injury lawsuit to secure compensation for ongoing care and support.
Warning Signs of Medical Negligence in Owings Mills Births
Parents may notice signs in the delivery room or as their child grows that point to medical negligence. Early red flags include breathing difficulties, unusual muscle tone, or trouble feeding shortly after birth. Developmental delays such as missed milestones in crawling, walking, or speaking may also indicate injury, particularly when combined with complications during delivery.
Warning signs during labor may include unexplained emergencies, sudden changes to the delivery plan, prolonged labor without monitoring, improper use of forceps or vacuums, or delayed responses to signs of fetal distress. Each of these failures may provide grounds for a malpractice claim.
Maryland Birth Injury Laws and Statute of Limitations
If your child has suffered a birth injury, understanding how Maryland’s medical malpractice laws apply can help you protect your family’s future. These laws establish specific rules about when claims may be filed and what families need to know before moving forward.
Under Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 5-109, most medical malpractice actions must be filed within three years of discovering the injury or within five years of when it occurred, whichever period is shorter. For children, however, the statute provides additional time.
Families are permitted to bring a claim up to three years after the child turns 18, which generally allows filing until the age of 21. This additional period gives parents the opportunity to recognize the lasting impact of a birth injury before pursuing legal action. Even so, courts encourage families to act sooner rather than later, while medical records, expert evaluations, and witness testimony are still readily available.
Maryland law also requires hospitals and healthcare providers to carry medical malpractice insurance under Maryland Health Occupations Code § 14-404. This insurance is usually the primary source of compensation for families.
While this insurance is usually the main source of compensation, damages in severe cases can exceed policy limits, requiring families to seek additional recovery through litigation. In those situations, families may need to pursue additional avenues of recovery through litigation.
However, in cases involving severe or lifelong injuries, medical costs and care needs may exceed policy limits. When that happens, families often need to explore additional options for recovery.
An experienced Owings Mills birth injury lawyer can provide guidance through these legal requirements, explain how the statutes apply to your situation, and advocate for the financial recovery your family needs for medical care, therapy, and future support, including cases involving major birth defects that create lifelong challenges.
How to Recognize a Potential Birth Injury After Delivery
Parents often question whether their child’s condition stems from unavoidable complications or from mistakes that could have been prevented. Certain warning signs may suggest a birth injury.
In the first days of life, difficulties with breathing, abnormal muscle tone, or trouble feeding can signal trauma sustained during delivery. As a child grows, developmental delays such as problems with crawling, walking, or speaking become more concerning, particularly when they coincide with complications that arose during labor.
Within the delivery room itself, red flags may include ignored signs of fetal distress, sudden unexplained emergencies, abrupt changes to the birth plan, or the improper use of delivery instruments. When such lapses occur, families may have strong grounds to seek legal recourse with the guidance of an Owings Mills birth injury lawyer.
Birth injuries often result when doctors or nurses fail to monitor mothers and babies appropriately, recognize risk factors, or act quickly during complications. Missed diagnoses of maternal conditions, delays in responding to fetal distress, or improper management of long labors and difficult deliveries can all lead to preventable harm. These failures provide the basis for holding medical professionals accountable under Maryland law, and if you need a lawyer for a Maryland birth injury case, timely action is essential.
Financial Impact of Birth Injuries on Owings Mills Families
The financial impact of a birth injury often extends across a child’s lifetime. Medical care, therapy, and support services can total millions of dollars, placing an enormous burden on families. An Owings Mills birth injury lawyer can calculate these expenses and pursue compensation to cover both immediate and future needs.
Immediate medical costs in the first year may include extended hospital stays, intensive care, diagnostic testing, and emergency procedures. Long-term care typically requires neurologists, orthopedic specialists, physical therapy, medications, and adaptive equipment.
Families may also face costs for specialized education, home modifications such as ramps or lifts, and lost income when parents cut back or leave work to provide care.
Support Services and Resources for Birth Injury Victims in Maryland
Families facing birth injuries often need more than medical care and legal representation. Early intervention programs, therapy services, and educational support can make a meaningful difference in a child’s development. In Maryland, families may qualify for the Infants and Toddlers Program, which provides statewide early intervention services, and an accident attorney help you sue negligent providers to secure the resources your child will need.
An experienced Owings Mills birth injury attorney not only pursues compensation for these costs but also helps guide families toward resources that support their child’s ongoing needs.
Maryland’s Medical Review Process for Birth Injury Lawsuits
Maryland's medical malpractice system includes unique procedural requirements that affect how birth injury cases progress through the legal system. The state's Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office provides mediation services designed to resolve medical malpractice disputes without lengthy court proceedings.
Before filing lawsuits in court, Maryland law requires most medical malpractice cases to go through a preliminary review process. This arbitration system allows both parties to present their cases to medical experts and legal professionals who provide non-binding opinions about liability and damages.
Several factors influence how Maryland's review process affects birth injury cases:
- Case complexity and the number of healthcare providers involved in the delivery
- Severity of injuries and estimated lifetime care costs for the affected child
- Strength of medical evidence supporting claims of negligence during delivery
- Willingness of insurance companies to engage in meaningful settlement negotiations
These considerations help attorneys develop strategies that maximize compensation while minimizing the time and stress families experience during legal proceedings. The goal remains achieving fair compensation that provides for the child's lifetime needs while holding negligent healthcare providers accountable, and many parents ask, can I get compensation when medical mistakes cause lasting birth injuries.
FAQs for Owings Mills Birth Injury Lawyers
What qualifies as a birth injury versus a natural birth complication?
Many birth injuries are preventable and occur when medical professionals fail to meet the accepted standard of care. Other complications may arise naturally even with proper care. The distinction often depends on whether healthcare providers followed accepted standards of care and responded appropriately to developing situations.
How long do I have to file a birth injury lawsuit in Maryland?
Maryland law provides special time limits for birth injury cases involving minors. Children generally have until age 21 to file, but it is always best to start as early as possible to preserve evidence and build the strongest case.
What types of compensation are available in birth injury cases?
Birth injury compensation may include medical expenses, future care costs, lost wages, home modifications, educational expenses, and pain and suffering damages. Cases involving permanent disabilities often result in multi-million dollar settlements or verdicts to cover lifetime care needs.
Do birth injury cases always go to trial?
Most birth injury cases settle before reaching trial, often during mediation or settlement negotiations. However, having attorneys prepared for trial usually leads to better settlement offers. Insurance companies take cases more seriously when they know the legal team has trial experience and resources.
How do attorneys prove medical negligence in birth injury cases?
Proving negligence requires medical expert testimony showing that healthcare providers failed to meet accepted standards of care and that this failure caused the child's injuries. Attorneys work with qualified medical experts who review records and provide opinions about whether care was appropriate.
Speak With an Experienced Owings Mills Birth Injury Lawyer Today
A birth injury can reshape every part of your family’s life, but you do not have to face the challenges alone. Holding negligent healthcare providers accountable not only provides the financial resources needed for your child’s care but also helps protect other families from preventable harm.
The attorneys at Furman Honick Law have the experience, resources, and trial skills to handle complex birth injury cases. Acting quickly is important because evidence must be preserved and medical experts consulted early to build the strongest possible claim.
Call Furman Honick Law at (410) 844-6000 today for a free consultation. Our Owings Mills birth injury lawyers will review your case, explain your legal options, and guide you toward justice and financial security for your child’s future.