It is one of the first things women say when they contact us. Not the injury itself. Not the medical details. Not the list of everything that has gone wrong since. The first thing, offered quietly, as though it requires an apology: “I’m not sure if what happened to me was bad enough.”
It comes from women who are still managing significant physical pain. From women who have not had sex since their baby was born, two years ago. From women who plan their entire day around access to a bathroom. From women who cry when they think about their birth — every time — because something happened in that room that they have never been able to reconcile.
And still they wonder if it was bad enough.
This article is about that question — why women ask it, where it comes from, and why it may be standing between them and rights they genuinely have.
Where the Question Comes From
The 2024 NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Birth Trauma heard from more than 4,000 women about their experiences during childbirth. Its findings were unambiguous: 28% of NSW women experience birth trauma — many from preventable failures in their medical care. More than one in ten reported experiencing some form of obstetric violence.
And yet, the Inquiry also found that most women who experienced birth trauma never pursued any form of legal recourse. Not because they lacked grounds. But because they didn’t know those grounds existed.
That gap — between the scale of what is happening and the number of women who seek help — is not accidental. It is the product of a set of messages that women receive, repeatedly, from the moment something goes wrong.
The messages arrive in different forms. Sometimes it is a midwife who tells you that tearing during birth is completely normal and you healed beautifully. Sometimes it is a GP who says your pain is expected and will settle in time. Sometimes it is the general cultural noise around new motherhood — the idea that difficulty is simply part of the experience, and that the right response to suffering is resilience, not questions.
Sometimes — and this is perhaps the most damaging form — the message comes from within. Women who feel grateful that their baby is healthy. Women who feel disloyal to medical staff who they know were under pressure and doing their best. Women who have been told so many times that their experience was normal that they have started to believe it.
The Myth of the Threshold
There is no legal threshold of suffering that a birth injury must cross before a claim becomes possible. There is no minimum level of pain, no required degree of disability, no checklist of injuries that must be ticked before your experience is considered worth pursuing.
The legal question is not how much you suffered. It is whether what you suffered was caused by a failure in the standard of care that your treating team should have provided. A second-degree tear that was misdiagnosed and left untreated, causing infection and long-term pelvic dysfunction — that may be worth significantly more in compensation than a more severe injury that was handled appropriately.
The severity of the outcome matters for damages. But the existence of a claim turns on the quality of the care — not the size of the injury.
Consider Elaine’s story. After the birth of her third child, Elaine suffered a second-degree perineal tear and a postpartum haematoma — internal bleeding in the vaginal tissues. Two separate hospitals misdiagnosed it as a back injury. By the time the correct diagnosis was made and treatment was provided, Elaine had endured months of unnecessary suffering, with lasting consequences for her pelvic health, her sexual function, and her mental health. Her claim settled for more than $750,000.
A second-degree tear. Misdiagnosed. The injury itself was not catastrophic. The failure to diagnose and treat it properly was.
The Women Who Were Told They Had No Claim
One of the most striking patterns we see is women who sought advice from a lawyer, or sometimes from a medical professional, and were told there was nothing to pursue. And who then, years later, found someone willing to properly investigate and discovered that they had been wrong.
John Turner’s experience reflects a version of this. After being told by another law firm that he had no claim, someone recommended Birth Injury Lawyers. His matter was properly investigated, properly prepared, and ultimately settled. “Anthony Porthouse was very professional and very responsive,” he said. “He made it clear what was happening and what we should do.”
Medical negligence is a specialist area of law. Not every lawyer who handles personal injury will have the depth of knowledge or the expert relationships required to properly assess a birth injury claim. A negative opinion from a generalist firm is not a definitive answer.
The Injuries Women Most Often Dismiss
In our experience, the categories of birth injury most likely to be minimised — by women, by clinicians, and sometimes by lawyers — include:
Perineal Tears and Pelvic Floor Injury
Tearing during birth is common. But common does not mean acceptable when that tear was preventable, or when it was not properly identified and repaired at the time of delivery, or when the ongoing symptoms were dismissed and left untreated. Women living with faecal or urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, pain during sex, or nerve damage following birth are not simply experiencing a normal recovery. They are living with the consequences of what may have been a preventable injury — or a preventable failure to treat one.
Psychological Injury Following Birth
Post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, and anxiety disorders following birth are recognised clinical conditions — and in cases where those conditions arise from a traumatic birth caused by medical negligence, they are compensable. Many women minimise their psychological injuries precisely because they are invisible. There is no scar, no visible wound. But a diagnosis of PTSD that prevents a woman from functioning normally, that disrupts her relationships and her capacity to parent, that leaves her unable to return to work — that is a serious injury, and it belongs in a compensation claim.
Injuries Following Postpartum Complications
A delayed or missed diagnosis of a postpartum haematoma, haemorrhage, or infection is not a minor administrative error. These conditions can cause lasting physical harm — and the failure to identify and treat them promptly is a recognised form of medical negligence. Women who spent weeks in unnecessary pain following a birth complication that was dismissed or mismanaged deserve to know that the failure was not theirs.
The Time Limit Question
One of the most common reasons women delay seeking advice is the belief that it is too late. That too much time has passed. That whatever rights they had have expired.
In most Australian jurisdictions, a personal injury claim must be commenced within three years of the date the claim becomes discoverable — which is not necessarily the date of birth. For many women, the clock does not start running until they understand, or could reasonably have understood, that their injuries were caused by a failure in their medical care rather than an unavoidable complication.
That is a question of law and fact, and it differs from case to case. If you are unsure whether you are within time, the only way to find out is to seek advice. Waiting longer to make that enquiry is the one thing most likely to genuinely close the door.
What Happens When You Call Us
When you contact Birth Injury Lawyers, the first conversation is free. There is no commitment. There is no obligation. You will speak to someone who has spent decades handling these exact claims — who will listen to what happened, ask questions to understand the picture more clearly, and give you an honest initial view of whether there may be grounds to investigate further.
If there are grounds, we explain the process clearly and plainly. If there are not, we tell you that too. What we will not do is dismiss what you experienced, or tell you it was all just one of those things, or send you away feeling more uncertain than when you arrived.
Julie had a third-degree tear during childbirth. An episiotomy had been performed at the wrong angle — a finding that turned on highly specific expert evidence that a less experienced or less diligent legal team might have missed entirely. Julie worked as a traffic controller. Her injuries made her job impossible. She had to retrain and find different employment. Her claim settled for more than $500,000.
Julie did not know any of that was possible when she first made contact. She just knew something had gone wrong, and she was still living with it.
That is enough to start.
The Question Worth Asking
If you have read this far, you have likely been living with something. Maybe for months. Maybe for years. Maybe you have told the story to a friend and had them look at you with a mixture of sympathy and helplessness. Maybe you have Googled it at midnight and then closed the browser because you didn’t know where to go next.
You do not need to be certain. You do not need to have your medical records organised. You do not need to have already decided that you want to pursue a claim.
You just need to be willing to ask the question. Because the question is worth asking — and you deserve an honest answer.
This information is general in nature and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is unique. We encourage you to contact us directly to discuss your specific circumstances.
