Accident Caused Premature Birth

Women do not stop driving when they become pregnant. And unfortunately car accidents do not discriminate between pregnant, non pregnant, men, women, children or any other classification. So a pregnant woman becoming involved in an car accident is not an unusual event. However, being pregnant and in a car accident does lead to a heightened medical examination by first responders and other medical personnel. This heightened examination is not only to examine the well being of the baby, but also the changes in the mother’s body that could lead to a premature birth of the child.

Three Things To Do If You Delivered Prematurely Following A Car Accident

• Gather medical records: It will be important to thoroughly review all of your medical records from the beginning of pregnancy leading up to the delivery. These records will help support any claim that the car accident caused the premature birth. For example, one of the most common notations in your medical records will be your blood pressure. Often times the car accident will send your blood pressure sky high. If doctors cannot control this, it may lead to a premature birth of your baby. The medical records will be able to establish a consistent pattern of blood pressure in the weeks prior to the car accident, and then the sudden spike following the car accident. If there are no other outside factors, the conclusion will be the car accident most likely caused the spike in blood pressure.
• Talk to your doctor: Express your concerns about the car accident to your doctor – even if you have only been in a car accident but haven’t delivered, you should still express your concern to your doctor and ask them for signs to look for that may be unhealthy for you or your baby. If you already delivered prematurely, ask your doctor whether they think it was because of the car accident. Your doctor’s goal is to keep you pregnant full term – they know the benefits of this for the baby. If you deliver prematurely, they have – in a sense – not accomplished their goal of keeping you to full term, therefore they will likely be very open about their thoughts on why you delivered prematurely. This may also provide you with some answers that will help alleviate any concerns about the car accident. Your doctor may have a perfectly sound explanation that does not involve the car accident. You need to know this answer because of you try to take action against the other driver, you can be sure they will take your doctor’s deposition and discover these facts at some point. It is better to know all the information up front.
• Have your baby examined: With any premature birth, you need to have the child’s doctors keep a close eye on any problems, especially developmental issues. Obviously developmental issues may not be observed immediately, but you should not wait to have an open dialogue with your child’s doctors about the possible impact of being born premature. These doctors are going to be the key to any claims against the other driver because being premature alone is not necessarily a bad thing. It is only if the premature birth creates some problems with your child, that you would look to the other driver for compensation to pay for the additional care and issues caused by the accident.

When I evaluate a premature birth case, the first question I ask is what the medical records showed in the weeks before the crash. If blood pressure and prenatal visits were normal and everything changed right after the collision, that timeline does most of the work. Defense lawyers will still point to every other possible cause, which is why I tell clients to get that full set of records early, before memories fade and files get harder to pull.

I tell every pregnant client the same thing after a crash: tell each doctor, nurse, and specialist you see that you were in a collision, even if you feel fine. What gets written in those visit notes in the first days matters more than anything said months later.

So, should you file a lawsuit against the other driver for causing you to have a premature birth? It is hard to say without knowing the information above. The real question comes down to whether you can prove any harm was done. Sometimes premature births result in the baby being taken away immediately and places into a special unit for monitoring. This can be devastating to the mother to not get to hold, hug and love on her child immediately after birth. There are also often additional costs involved that would not be present in a full term birth. You can see how damages can begin to develop that would support a lawsuit. Add these types of facts to some developmental issues with the child, and you have a very serious claim. But if your child develops, and you have minimal costs above those of a regular full term birth, you may want to simply be grateful that everything worked out well for you, and move on with the matter – lawsuits are not fun.

Attorney Q&A: Premature Birth After a Car Accident

What is the hardest part of proving that a car accident caused a premature birth?

The hardest part is causation. The defense will point to everything except the crash: prior blood pressure issues, infections, age, stress, anything in the prenatal history they can find. So the case comes down to the timeline in the medical records. If everything was normal before the collision and changed right after, that is your case. Without that clean before-and-after, these claims are an uphill fight.

What do you tell a pregnant client to do in the days after a crash to protect both her health and a potential claim?

I tell them two things. First, get checked out even if you feel fine, and tell every provider you were in a crash so it goes in the notes. Second, write down how you feel each day, even small things like headaches or cramping, because those notes become important later. Most people do not do either of these, and it costs them.

What damages can actually be recovered when a crash causes a premature birth?

The big one is medical costs: NICU stays are enormously expensive, and then there is ongoing monitoring for developmental issues that can stretch for years. Parents can also recover lost income from time off work and the emotional distress of being separated from their newborn in those first days. What you cannot recover is speculative: if the baby develops normally and the extra costs are minimal, there may not be a case worth filing.

How do insurance companies usually fight these claims?

They attack causation first, usually by hiring their own medical expert to say the premature birth would have happened regardless of the crash. They will also try to settle early and cheap, before any developmental issues show up, because once those appear the value of the claim goes up. That is why I tell clients not to rush into a quick settlement.