Birth injuries happen for many different reasons, and sometimes they are immediately obvious during childbirth. There are a number of steps a delivery team must complete during a childbirth procedure. This review process is designed to ensure the health of the baby and mother and determine any medical risks or injuries either may face. If the parents notice a birth injury immediately, they can start taking legal action as soon as they have addressed their immediate medical concerns.
In other cases, a birth injury isn’t immediately noticeable. For example, some newborns suffer injuries to the brachial plexus, a cluster of nerves that joins the spinal cord to the nerves of the arm. Newborns do not move very much for the first few days of their lives, but they become increasingly active very quickly. Parents may not notice an impaired limb for the first several weeks or months of a baby’s life. In these situations, the “date of discovery,” or the date the parents noticed the birth injury, would become the start date for the statute of limitations in California.