A mom in Oregon is suing Portland Adventist Medical Center for $eight.6 million after she by accident smothered her four-day-old child in a hospital mattress.
Monica Thompson says that, just a few days after her son Jacob was born in August 2012, the hospital put her new child in mattress together with her so she may breastfeed him. But Thompson says within the lawsuit that the infant was put there in the course of the night time, whereas she was closely medicated. Thompson drifted off, and when she awoke, Jacob was unresponsive.
Jacob suffered extreme mind harm and was positioned on life assist, in keeping with the lawsuit. After six days, medical doctors instructed the mother and father the infant’s comatose state was irreversible. The mother and father pulled their son from life assist when he was 10 days outdated.
The lawsuit was filed final week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
Kristi Spurgeon Johnson, a spokeswoman for Portland Adventist Medical Center, instructed The Oregonian this week the hospital couldn’t touch upon the lawsuit till the hospital had an opportunity to overview it. The hospital additionally declined to touch upon its coverage about newborns sharing beds with their moms.
But the Adventist Health web site options “Health Tip” posts about maintaining newborns secure, together with one tip that reads “child care experts say it’s dangerous for infants to sleep in the same bed with their parents.” The American Academy of Pediatrics has beneficial in opposition to mattress sharing, in keeping with The Oregonian.
Thompson, who’s suing each the hospital and the person nurse concerned within the incident, mentioned she was “still drowsy and groggy” from her medicine when she realized her son was not shifting, her lawsuit states. The go well with says Thompson known as for a nurse, and when none got here, she “carried her son to the hallway and frantically yelled for help.”
“I am sharing our story in the hopes that no mother or family will ever have to suffer through a preventable tragedy such as this. What happened to us could have easily been prevented had the nurses been doing their job,” Thompson mentioned in a press release by way of her lawyer.
The lawsuit seeks damages for the infant’s “desperation and anxiety” as he suffocated and for Thompson’s “severe emotional distress upon unintentionally killing her firstborn child.” It additionally asks for damages to cowl medical and counseling bills for melancholy and post-traumatic stress dysfunction, which Thompson says have been brought on by the demise of her son.