Wichita Cerebral Palsy Lawyer

When you have your baby, you’re excited and happy and can’t wait to raise your little bundle of joy. What you usually don’t expect is for your sweet little infant to have a severe injury when they were perfectly healthy before birth. A diagnosis of cerebral palsy can be devastating news for a family, but it, unfortunately, is not uncommon. Even more devastating is the notion that the medical staff who were supposed to care for you and your child neglected their duties, resulting in your child’s injuries.

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a condition that often severely affects a child’s ability to control their muscles, generally due to brain damage suffered either in the womb or during birth. CP is a condition that will remain with a child and their family for their entire life, greatly affecting their overall quality of life and often causing financial stress on the family.

If your child or the child of someone you know suffered a brain injury that led to a CP diagnosis during the birth of your baby, you have the right to bring a birth injury lawsuit against any and all medical personnel involved in your child’s birth. A skilled Wichita cerebral palsy lawyer from Prochaska, Howell & Prochaska LLC is ready to help you pursue legal action against those who caused preventable harm to your child and seek compensation for your child’s injuries.

How Does Cerebral Palsy Occur?

Considered the most common type of motor disability found in children during childhood, cerebral palsy (CP) generally occurs when the doctors or medical staff caring for the mother and baby make mistakes or are not negligent in their overall care. These situations lead to birth injuries like CP and many others occurring in what should have been a perfectly healthy child.

Some of the conditions that lead to the onset of cerebral palsy include:

• Infection in the fetus: The baby develops an infection in the womb that causes inflammation in the brain.
• Infection during pregnancy: The mother has an infection that passes to the baby in the womb, affecting the spinal cord and brain.
• Lack of blood supply: The mother and baby have a condition during the pregnancy that leads to a reduced blood supply to the baby in the womb and raises the possibility of fetal stroke.
• Difficult birth: The baby is in the birth canal for too long, leading to a lack of oxygen to the baby.
• Brain damage: The baby suffers trauma during the birth because the doctor uses instruments on the baby that damage the brain or another member of the medical staff drops the baby.

While a doctor or other medical professional may be the cause of a child’s injury due to either action or inaction, in certain cases, no one could have predicted the onset of CP. Some other risks during pregnancy that could lead to brain damage are:

• The mutated gene that caused abnormal brain growth
• Mother using drugs or drinking alcohol
• Unexpected seizures in the fetus
• Presence of Zika virus

In addition to these conditions, whether preventable or not, there are higher risk factors CP for in certain babies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that babies who are born weighing less than 3 pounds and 5 ounces have a much greater chance of having CP, as well as those babies born before the 37^th week of pregnancy, but especially before the 32^nd week. Although intensive care for premature infants has improved drastically over the past several decades, babies who are born too early are still at severely high risk of developing many medical complications such as CP.

Signs To Look for in Your Child

Although many children are diagnosed with cerebral palsy before the age of two, those affected children with more mild symptoms may not be diagnosed until later in childhood. Often, those with mild symptoms are diagnosed after their parents, caretakers, or pediatrician notice that developmental milestones expected for the child’s age have not yet been reached, such as the child failing to:

• Roll over properly
• Stand or walk
• Reach for toys
• Sit up

Other signs there may be brain damage present in your child are:

• Excessive drooling
• Spastic or shaking limbs
• Difficulty speaking, eating, and/or swallowing
• Difficulty seeing and/or hearing
• Trouble controlling movement
• Physical symptoms only on one side of the body

If any of these signs or symptoms are present in your child or the child of someone you know, you may have grounds to pursue legal action against the doctor or other medical personnel involved in your or your child’s care during pregnancy and delivery. Reach out to our office today for a free consultation with a Wichita cerebral palsy lawyer who specializes in cases like yours.

Lifelong Effects on the Family

It’s not just the child who suffers from birth injury situations like cerebral palsy. The costs of caring for someone with CP are extremely high. Families will pay for lifelong medical care, physical therapy, special education, special medical devices, and so many other costly services to help their child as they grow. According to the CDC, the average lifetime cost of care for a child with cerebral palsy is around 1 million.

Your child’s doctor can perform an ultrasound, an MRI, and/or an EEG to help determine the extent of your child’s injuries so that you can give your child the proper care they need with their diagnosis and also so that you can pursue legal action.

Unlike other medical malpractice cases that lead to serious injuries, those affected by cerebral palsy, especially the more severe cases, don’t have much treatment available to make it better. It is a diagnosis that sticks with the child and their family for the child’s entire life. No family should have to face this situation alone, especially if it can be proven that the medical professionals played even the smallest part in causing a CP diagnosis.

Legal Recourse for Cerebral Palsy Cases

If you or anyone you know has a child who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and you believe that doctors’ negligence is the cause for your child’s injuries, an experienced attorney from Prochaska, Howell & Prochaska LLC can help. Contact our Wichita office today for your free consultation with legal professionals who understand the ins and outs of medical laws and who will fight for your child.

We understand that financial compensation a Wichita cerebral palsy lawyer may recover for you may not fix the mistakes that occurred, but we know that any little bit of financial assistance can help you provide the best life possible for your child, and we will fight to ensure you receive what is owed to you.