High-Risk Pregnancy And Auto Accidents: Who's At-Fault For Your Premature Delivery?

If your high-risk pregnancy ended with the early delivery of your baby because of a devastating auto accident, contact a personal injury attorney now. Although you qualify for compensation and medical care, the other driver's insurance company may deny your benefits, because it thinks your decision to drive during your high-risk pregnancy led to your baby's premature birth. However, a personal injury lawyer can prove otherwise. Here are two critical things in your case that help an accident attorney win your case.

Medical Evidence Reveals That the Auto Accident Caused Your Baby's Early Delivery

One of the biggest problems associated with auto accidents is proving who's responsible for them. In many cases, it's the other driver's fault, because they fail to follow the rules of the road. But since you experienced a medical problem that can potentially interfere with your ability to drive, a personal injury attorney needs to work harder to prove that the other driver is at fault for the accident. The other driver's insurance company can use a number of reasons to place the blame for your premature delivery on you to avoid compensating you properly.

For instance, a number of high-risk women experience high blood pressure during pregnancy that causes problems with their babies. The insurance company may say that your blood pressure increased during and after the accident, which is the reason for your premature delivery. However, a personal injury attorney may argue that the stress of the accident triggered your premature delivery and not your high blood pressure, especially if you take medications to control it.

To back up the attorney's claims, they will request medical documentation and records from your doctor that show that your blood pressure stayed under control during all or most of your pregnancy. The records may contain the results of your blood pressure checks every time you came into the office, including the dates and times of the checks. 

An accident attorney can also obtain the results of your emergency medical care from the attending hospital or doctors and compare them to the blood pressure results obtained from your regular doctor. The results may show an abnormal spike in your blood pressure that only occurred during and after your car accident.

In addition, if your primary OB-GYN cleared you to drive during your pregnancy as long as you take your medications and receive routine care, an attorney can obtain documentation from your doctor stating this fact. The doctor may verify that you didn't have problems with your blood pressure until the day of the accident, because you took the right precautions and followed doctor's orders.

Once a personal injury attorney gathers the medical evidence they need, they pursue the at-fault driver.

Evidence Shows That the Other Driver's Negligence Caused Your Baby's Early Delivery

The other driver in the accident may have a number of problems that led to the collision that day. For instance, the attorney needs to discover if the driver used an electronic device right before the accident, such as a tablet or cell phone. One in four car accidents occur because of drivers who talk or view cell phones while driving.

The drivers become distracted visually and take their eyes off the road, or they remove their hands from the steering wheel to operate their devices. If the driver did use an electronic device some time before your accident, they're at-fault for you and your baby's injuries.

An accident lawyer may also use forensic technology, such as 3-D rendering, to show that the other driver's responsible for your early delivery. Forensic technology recreates the accident based on the skid marks left on the road, damages obtained by your vehicle and the eye-witness accounts of other drivers and pedestrians.

Forensic technology also reveals the angle of your car before, during and after the accident. If you swerved to miss the other driver's oncoming car, the technology will help the attorney prove it. The other driver's insurance company may decide to settle or award your compensation out of court because of the forensic evidence against their client.

If you have concerns about your case or need to find representation for it, contact a personal injury attorney from a firm like Burke Schultz Harman & Jenkinson Attorneys at Law today.