Does Being Pregnant Affect Personal Injury Claims?

When someone is harmed by the negligence of another party, they’ll likely have the option to file a personal injury claim to recover the losses associated with their incident. Personal injury lawsuits are important for recovery because they allow a person to seek compensation for the full extent of their injuries, ranging from monetary losses that have already happened to damages that will occur in the future. Additionally, personal injury claims allow someone to seek damages for non-monetary issues such as emotional and physical suffering.

Personal injury claims are especially useful because they help people recover compensation for losses that extend far beyond what an insurance claim would typically provide. Understanding this helps clarify how a personal injury claim can be affected if it involves the injury of a pregnant person or their child.

Are Motor Vehicle Accidents Dangerous for Pregnancies?

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for women of reproductive age (between 15 and 44 years old). The CDC has also found that between 1 and 3 percent of live-born babies are exposed to trauma in utero during a motor vehicle accident.

Studies show that as many as 7 percent of pregnancies are complicated because of trauma. When this information is combined with findings from the CDC, it’s clear that many women and their unborn children suffer from injuries caused by accidents they aren’t at fault for.

The study found that car crashes caused elevated rates of:

• Preterm birth
• Stillbirth
• Placental abruption
• Premature rupture of membranes (PROM)
• Low birthweight
• Fetal distress

Some events, such as preterm birth, were found to be three times more likely to occur after a pregnant woman had been involved in a car accident.

How Does Pregnancy Affect Injury Claims?

Just as with any other accident involving the behavior of negligent parties or individuals, pregnant women—and their unborn children—deserve justice after an accident. Pregnancy can complicate a claim, making getting the help of a qualified personal injury lawyer crucial.

Common monetary losses mothers need help with after an accident include:

• Medical exams and procedures for her and her child
• Lost income
• Increased complications during birth
• Longterm care if a child has medical issues caused by trauma

As mentioned above, a personal injury claim can help injured expectant mothers recover financial compensation for the damages caused by their accident, including any medical debt.

The Emotional Weight of Being Injured While Pregnant

The damages listed above have one thing in common: they have a monetary value. However, there’s another type of damage that can make an injury claim different for pregnant individuals: the emotional cost of one. Though emotional suffering has no tangible value, it’s a critical element that personal injury law firms consider as they work on a client’s case.

Having an unborn child injured or killed by an accident is something that can stay with parents for a lifetime. This means that securing compensation for emotional damage isn’t about how much parents can make on it—it’s about justice. Emotional suffering is often categorized as something known as punitive damages. These damages, as the name suggests, are meant to be a punishment for an at-fault party. They’re not based on any traceable losses, expenses, or any other aspect of an accident other than the suffering it has inflicted on survivors or the families of victims.

Hiring the Right Personal Injury Lawyer While Pregnant Is Crucial for Recovery

If you’ve been in an accident that you didn’t cause while pregnant, you deserve help from a team that’ll demand justice on behalf of you and your child. At Arnold & Itkin, our lawyers are known for fighting for the results that clients need and exploring every option possible for them. In fact, we’ve obtained life-changing results by fighting for clients suffering after an accident they’ve experienced while pregnant.

One of our most notable cases involved a client who was seven months pregnant at the time of her accident. After experiencing stomach pain, she called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. That ambulance was operated by a driver who had a history of dangerous driving and poor vision. As he transported our client, he attempted to pick up a dropped medical device and slammed the ambulance into the back of a truck while doing so.

The collision caused our client’s spine to sever and caused her to sustain serious brain injuries. She was paralyzed from the neck down and exhibited the cognitive effects of her brain injury. Our client’s family came to us after being told the only option she had was to be in a nursing home for the rest of her life. We invested over $2 million into getting her the care she needed. While our client received treatment, we fought for the justice she and her children deserved.

The result was a $117-million jury verdict that enabled her to get the ongoing care she needs while enabling her children to have the future they deserve.

When families come to our firm looking for help, we know they need us to do everything possible. In the case listed above, it meant making sure our client got the care she needed—even if it meant paying for it ourselves. We do this because we know that families deserve a firm that’ll put everything on the line to make sure they get the results they deserve.

No matter what.

Call us today for a free case review at (888) 493-1629. A member of our team is standing by to listen to what happened and help you decide what options are available to you.