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Monday, August 14, 2017

Woman who accidentally smothered newborn sues hospital for $8.6M


PORTLAND, Ore. -- An Oregon woman is suing the hospital where she gave birth to her son after he died from being smothered at just 4-days old.

Monica Thompson filed an $8.6 million lawsuit against Portland Adventist Medical Center, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. She claims the hospital is at fault for her child's death because the newborn was put in bed with her at night to breastfeed while she was unsupervised and medicated with pain and sleep aids.

Thompson said she dozed off on the August 2012 night and woke up to find her son not breathing.

She was medicated with Ambien and Vicodin a few hours before a nurse walked into the room, gave her the baby and left, according to the suit.

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Breaks my heart. How awful.

Anonymous said...

They were giving her Ambien and Vicodin and letting her breastfeed?

Anonymous said...

this is so heartbreaking! & hits close to home for me. i was in labor for 18 hours and gave birth at 8pm. when i was in l&d, the nurses / staff checked on me every few minutes it seems. once i was moved to mother baby, they didn't come nearly as often. i too, was alone in my
room after being on an epidural for 13 hours and on pain meds. i remember breastfeeding my newborn just a few hours old, and sometime during this, i quickly fell asleep. i awoke and found my son under my breast, but thank God he was breathing. i don't even know how long it had been. i immediately had a rush of fear come over me, thinking of what the other outcome could have been. to this day, i still think of this often. i can't imagine how this mother felt and must feel.

Anonymous said...

What kind of medical professional would allow a mother with those sorts of drugs in her system nurse her baby, period, supervised or not?!

Anonymous said...

@ 10:32pm, idk what all they give you for pain meds when you give birth but most moms breastfeed as soon as their babies are born. i never even thought of that!

Anonymous said...

9:44 your story is exactly the same as mine. I woke up with my newborn in my arms panicking because I realized he was still in my arms and I had been asleep.

Anonymous said...

Exactly.. what in the world, you aren't supposed to while taking powerful meds!