Two patients, two charts
A birth involves the care of a mother and a baby, and their records are usually kept separately. The labor and delivery file, including fetal heart monitoring strips, often matters as much as the newborn's own chart, and records from prenatal visits can matter too. Placental pathology, cord blood results, and imaging of the baby's brain are sometimes stored in yet other places. When families request records, they often receive one chart and assume it is the whole file. A birth injury review usually needs all of it, gathered in full and in its original form where possible.
What the review tries to answer
Some injuries at birth result from conditions that no one could have prevented, and others are linked to how labor was monitored or how quickly a team responded to signs of distress. Telling those apart is a question of medical causation, and it is usually the hardest part of the analysis. The reviewers typically include clinicians from obstetrics and from neonatal or pediatric neurology, because the question spans both. A diagnosis may also take time to become clear as a child develops, which is one reason this review is not rushed. We tell you what the records support, including when they point away from a claim.
Timing, court approval, and the long view
Rules on when a claim for a child must be filed differ from the rules for adults, and in New York they are not open-ended, so waiting for a child to grow older is not a safe plan. A claim for the mother's own injuries follows its own timing, and a public hospital can require a notice of claim much sooner than either. If a matter brought on behalf of a child is resolved, a court generally has to approve the terms. Because a child's needs can stretch across a lifetime, damages questions often involve life care planning and careful thought about how any funds will be held. In a first conversation we start with timing and records, and leave the larger questions until the facts are clearer.
