A Baby Injury Attorney in Tampa, FL, Who Understands What Your Family Is Facing and Fights for the Recovery Your Child Needs
Nothing prepares you for the moment a joyful delivery turns into a crisis. One minute you're anticipating your baby's first cry, and the next you're watching a NICU team work, waiting for answers, and trying to process what happened, often while barely having slept. If your baby was hurt because of medical malpractice during pregnancy, labor, or delivery, you need a Tampa birth injury lawyer who understands both the medicine involved and what your family is carrying right now.
At Ligori & Ligori, Injury Lawyers, we investigate birth injury cases carefully, working with medical experts to understand exactly what should have happened during your baby's delivery and how medical negligence changed everything. We also manage the legal process Florida requires for these types of cases, so you can focus on your child instead of the demands of the claims process. Our team never loses sight of the reality that your case is much more than a file. This is your child’s future, and we’re committed to fighting for the best possible result for your family.
Contact us today for a free consultation with a baby injury attorney in Tampa, FL. There's no cost and no pressure, just a conversation about what happened, what your child may need going forward, and how we may be able to help your family.
Types of Harm a Tampa Birth Injury Lawyer Can Handle for Your Family
Birth injuries range from conditions that resolve with time and therapy to those that affect a child for the rest of their life. Understanding what type of injury your baby experienced is often the first step toward figuring out what resources and support your family may need going forward.
Brachial Plexus Injuries and Erb's Palsy
The brachial plexus is a network of nerves running from the spine to the shoulder, arm, and hand. When excessive force is used to deliver a baby's shoulder during a difficult delivery, often in cases involving shoulder dystocia, these nerves can be stretched or torn. Stretching or tearing of these nerves can lead to weakness or paralysis in the arm known as Erb's palsy. Some cases improve with therapy, while others result in permanent limitations.
Fractures and Broken Bones
A baby's bones, particularly the collarbone, can fracture during a difficult delivery. Fractures are particularly likely when excessive force is used to reposition a baby who is stuck or positioned awkwardly in the birth canal. While many fractures heal without lasting harm, some indicate a delivery that wasn't handled with appropriate care.
Skull Injuries and Cephalohematoma
Improper use of forceps or a vacuum extractor can cause bruising, swelling, or bleeding beneath a baby's scalp, known as cephalohematoma, or more serious skull injuries. While mild cases often resolve on their own, more severe injuries can indicate deeper trauma that requires close monitoring.
Infections Passed to a Newborn
Certain infections, including Group B strep, can pass from mother to baby during delivery if not properly screened for or treated. Left unaddressed, these infections can cause serious, sometimes life-threatening complications for a newborn.
Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy and Cerebral Palsy
When a baby is deprived of oxygen during labor or delivery, the resulting brain injury can lead to cerebral palsy or other lifelong developmental and physical challenges. Often, oxygen deprivation during delivery results from a failure to monitor fetal distress or a delayed response to an emergency. The consequences of brain injury malpractice can affect an infant for a lifetime, raising complex medical and legal questions. Trusted guidance is important for pursuing an outcome that prepares your child for the future.
Some severe cases involving oxygen deprivation or mechanical injury at birth may fall under Florida's NICA program, a separate, no-fault compensation system that can affect whether a traditional malpractice lawsuit is available. Because NICA eligibility involves specific medical and legal criteria, it's worth discussing your child's situation with an attorney early to understand which path applies.
Common Causes of Birth Injury Malpractice
Birth injuries often result from a failure at one of several critical moments during labor and delivery.
Failure to Monitor Fetal Distress
Fetal heart rate monitoring is designed to catch signs that a baby is in distress before serious harm occurs. When staff fail to recognize or act on these warning signs quickly enough, a baby can be deprived of oxygen for a dangerous length of time.
Delayed or Failed C-Section
When a vaginal delivery becomes unsafe, timing matters. A delayed decision to perform a cesarean section, or a delay in actually performing one once the decision is made, can turn a manageable situation into a medical emergency. Surgical errors made during the C-section procedure itself, including improper surgical technique that injures the baby during delivery, can also result in serious harm.
Improper Use of Delivery Instruments
Forceps and vacuum extractors carry real risk when used improperly, including excessive force or incorrect placement, and can result in serious skull and nerve injuries.
Medication Errors During Labor
Medications used to induce or strengthen labor, particularly Pitocin, require careful monitoring, since overuse can cause contractions that are too frequent or intense for a baby to safely tolerate. Medication errors involving these and other medications during labor and delivery are addressed in greater depth on our medication errors page.
Anesthesia Errors During Delivery
Epidural and other anesthesia complications during labor and delivery can affect both mother and baby. Anesthesia errors include incorrect administration and inadequate monitoring.
Failure to Diagnose or Treat Maternal Conditions
Conditions like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, or infections can seriously affect a baby's safety if not properly diagnosed and managed throughout pregnancy and delivery. A missed or delayed diagnosis of these and other complications, or failure to treat these conditions properly once diagnosed, can allow a manageable condition to become dangerous for both mother and baby.
Nursing Errors During Labor and Delivery
Labor and delivery nurses play a critical role in monitoring both mother and baby and alerting physicians to warning signs. Nursing errors during labor can delay the immediate response that a worsening situation requires.
A difficult delivery or even an unexpected health issue in an infant may not always constitute malpractice. Birth complications can sometimes happen even when the mother and baby receive appropriate care. The only reliable way to determine whether your child’s harm resulted from a provider’s negligence is to have an experienced Tampa birth injury lawyer review the facts of your situation and determine whether the elements of a medical malpractice claim can be established.
Establishing Negligence in a Florida Birth Injury Claim
For a birth injury claim to succeed in Florida, you need to establish specific elements. You generally must show that a provider owed a duty of care consistent with the accepted standard for their role, that their actions or failure to act fell below that standard, and that this failure caused your baby's injury.
Because so many decisions happen quickly during labor and delivery, reconstructing exactly what occurred, and when, often requires a detailed review of medical records alongside experienced medical experts.
Proving negligence means examining the actions of everyone involved, not just the physician who ultimately delivered your baby. A single delivery often involves several different providers, each with their own responsibilities and their own standard of care. As your baby injury attorney in Tampa, FL, our firm will carefully review your records to uncover evidence of medical negligence on the part of parties such as:
- Obstetricians
- Midwifes
- Anesthesiologists
- Labor and delivery nurses
Through our thorough investigation, documentation, and development of your case, we work to show how your medical team's actions fell below the standard of care a competent provider would have met and to establish that this failure, not an unavoidable complication, caused your baby's injury.
Navigating Florida's Presuit Process for Birth Injury Claims
Because a birth injury can involve more than one provider, Florida's presuit process often takes on an added layer of complexity that a claim against a single provider doesn't have.
Before a lawsuit can be filed, Florida law requires an investigation into whether reasonable grounds exist to believe malpractice occurred. If that investigation supports a claim, a Notice of Intent to Initiate Litigation must be sent to every provider believed to be responsible. In a birth injury case, that can mean separate notices to an obstetrician, a hospital, an anesthesiologist, or other providers involved in the delivery. The required corroborating medical expert opinion must adequately support the medical negligence claims being asserted, including the alleged departures from the applicable standards of care.
Once notice is sent, a 90-day investigation period begins for each provider individually. Because these providers and their insurers investigate independently rather than jointly, they don't always reach the same conclusion at the same time. One provider might reject a claim quickly, while another's insurer takes the full 90 days or offers arbitration instead.
Coordinating a case moving at different speeds for different defendants, without missing a deadline for any of them, is part of what makes a multi-provider birth injury claim more demanding than a single-provider case.
Missteps in this process can jeopardize a claim, and that risk multiplies when several parties are involved at once. Florida law recognizes narrow exceptions to certain presuit requirements, but these are fact-specific and strictly interpreted by courts, so families should never assume that such an exception applies without an attorney's review. This overview is not a substitute for a full case evaluation with our team, but you can speak with an experienced attorney about the process and your options during a free consultation with Ligori & Ligori, Injury Lawyers.
Deadlines for Filing a Birth Injury Claim in Florida
In Florida, patients harmed by medical negligence generally have two years from the date the malpractice was discovered, or reasonably should have been discovered, to file a claim. Florida also generally imposes a four-year statute of repose running from the date of the incident itself, although limited exceptions can apply.
This deadline applies to birth injury cases that a parent would file on behalf of their injured child. There is, however, a specific exception that families should be aware of. The four-year statute of repose does not bar a claim brought on behalf of a child on or before the child's eighth birthday. That doesn’t necessarily mean all children who sustained birth injuries due to medical negligence have until their eighth birthday to act. Depending on the specific facts of the situation, the ordinary two-year limitations period may still apply based on when the malpractice was or should have been discovered.
Since some birth injuries, particularly those affecting development, aren't fully apparent until a child grows and misses expected milestones, it’s particularly important that parents in Florida speak with an attorney as soon as they suspect that their child may have been harmed at birth by a provider’s negligence.
This deadline framework applies to your child's claim. A mother who experienced her own harm during childbirth may have a separate claim against her care team, governed by its own timeline.
Medical malpractice deadlines in Florida can be complex, and every family's situation is different. Contacting an attorney promptly after a difficult delivery is the safest way to protect your child's rights.
Pursuing the Resources an Injured Child Needs: Compensation That May Be Available Through Your Birth Injury Claim
Florida law may allow you to pursue compensation on behalf of your child for a range of losses connected to a birth injury, including:
- Medical treatment: Emergency medical care, surgeries, hospitalization, and any ongoing treatment your child's injury requires
- Future medical and developmental needs: Therapy, specialized equipment, and medical care that may be needed throughout your child's life
- Pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life: Compensation on behalf of your child for the physical and emotional toll of their injury
Your own losses as a parent: Lost income if you've had to reduce or stop working to care for your child, along with out-of-pocket costs connected to their injury and recovery
A birth injury often means your child's needs will change significantly over time. A toddler with a brachial plexus injury may need ongoing occupational therapy as they grow. A child with cerebral palsy may need different equipment, therapies, and educational support at five years old than they will at fifteen. If your claim only accounts for today's expenses, it could leave your family without the resources you'll need years from now.
At Ligori & Ligori, Injury Lawyers, we work with life-care planners and medical experts to project these evolving needs across your child's entire development, not just their immediate treatment. We build claims that reflect what an injured child will actually require over the course of their life, and as a Tampa birth injury lawyer, our team fights relentlessly to maximize their recovery.
Your child’s birth injury claim is separate from any claim a mother may have for harm she personally experienced during childbirth, which would be pursued independently against her own care team.
Why Choose Ligori & Ligori, Injury Lawyers as Your Baby Injury Attorney in Tampa, FL?
Families shouldn’t have to manage the demands of the legal process while also caring for an injured infant. Our legal team takes on these burdens for you, so the process of pursuing the recovery your child needs through the civil legal system never adds to your stress. Here’s what sets our firm apart.
Prepared to Investigate Every Provider
Birth injuries often involve more than one party, and our firm doesn’t shy away from investigating everyone involved in potential medical malpractice matters. We examine the actions of every physician, nurse, and staff member connected to your baby's delivery, not just the most obvious defendant.
Equipped to Manage Florida's Presuit Process Involving Multiple Providers
Notifying and navigating claims against several parties at once takes real organization. As your Tampa birth injury lawyer, we will manage every step carefully to protect your child's case from avoidable procedural problems.
Genuinely Mindful of What Your Family Is Carrying
Caring for a newborn is exhausting under the best circumstances. Caring for an injured baby means feeding schedules and sleepless nights layered with therapy appointments, specialist visits, and equipment logistics, on top of grief and uncertainty about the future. We meet with families at home, in the hospital, or wherever fits into a schedule that's already stretched thin. We handle communication in a way that never asks you to carve out time you don't have, and we are available 24/7 for urgent questions. Our team also includes Spanish-speaking staff at every level.
Committed to Removing Financial Barriers
We work on a contingency-fee basis and advance qualifying case costs, so you pay no attorney fees or case costs unless we recover for your family. This arrangement means you won’t have to worry about whether you can afford to pursue the justice your child deserves.
Contact a Tampa Birth Injury Lawyer at Ligori & Ligori, Injury Lawyers for a Free Consultation
If your baby was injured due to a provider’s negligence during pregnancy, labor, or delivery, what you do next matters. Your family deserves support in planning for your child’s future care needs, as well as real answers and accountability from those at fault. We provide comprehensive personal injury representation for families affected by birth injuries.
Reach out to Ligori & Ligori, Injury Lawyers, for a free consultation with a baby injury attorney in Tampa, FL. Call us at 888-706-87686 or fill out our online contact form today to start protecting your child’s future.
