A mother in Oregon is suing Portland Adventist Medical Center for $8.6 million after she accidentally smothered her four-day-old baby in a hospital bed.
Monica Thompson says that, a few days after her son Jacob was born in August 2012, the hospital put her newborn in bed with her so she could breastfeed him. But Thompson says in the lawsuit that the baby was put there in the middle of the night, while she was heavily medicated. Thompson drifted off, and when she woke up, Jacob was unresponsive...
Thompson, who is suing both the hospital and the individual nurse involved in the incident, said she was still drowsy and groggy†from her medication when she realized her son was not moving, her lawsuit states. The suit says Thompson called for a nurse, and when none came, she carried her son to the hallway and frantically yelled for help.â€
I had my son lady partslly so I don't know about c-section pain but why was she still in the hospital on pain meds at 4 days post delivery? Sounds like maybe she was having complications to begin with. I thought typical rules were 1 day for lady partsl and 2-3 days for c-section.
Though I can't imagine her pain (and don't want to), I'm in agreement that there is more to this story!
I had my son lady partslly so I don't know about c-section pain but why was she still in the hospital on pain meds at 4 days post delivery? Sounds like maybe she was having complications to begin with. I thought typical rules were 1 day for lady partsl and 2-3 days for c-section.
Though I can't imagine her pain (and don't want to), I'm in agreement that there is more to this story!
4 day stay for c-sections in places I have worked and 2 days for vag deliveries.
First, Ambien is not a pain medication. Yes, I *do* think it's relevant that she was given Ambien, on top of regular narcotic medication. It's not a regular occurrence.
We discourage cosleeping. Strongly. However, it's entirely reasonable for a woman to breastfeed her baby while sitting up in bed. I think at 4am, it's a hardship to expect the woman, who has just had major abdominal surgery, to get up out of bed and move to a chair in order to breastfeed. So it's not at all unusual for a nurse to bring the baby into the mom's room, help her sit up in bed, and then hand the baby to her while she's in bed in order to breastfeed.
Many women do not have the luxury of having a partner/spouse with her 24/7, either in the hospital or at home. Is it reasonable to say that we cannot leave a mother alone with her newborn?
Perhaps not when she's drugged up and at risk of falling asleep and suffocating her baby?
Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
I have absolutely ZERO OB experience so I'm going off of my delivery experience only. I was never given Ambien, only opiates after delivering both of my boys. I think it's a little much to give opiates as well as Ambien.
What happened is definitely a lose/lose situation. Should the nurse not have medicated the mother & made her nurse in pain? Should the nurse have medicated the mother but then told the mother she couldn't feed her baby?
The nurse certainly couldn't have sat in the room with the mother while she was feeding. If the mother wasn't ok with formula feeding at all, then what is the solution?
I roomed in with both my boys but when I was so exhausted or took medication I had a nurse take my son back to the nursery.
I can't imagine losing my newborn but I hate that all the blame is put on the nurse. If the mother requested the medication & requested to room in with her child, then it was ultimately her responsibility to put her child in his crib at the bare minimum.
As a parent, there have been times I have been really sick or exhausted & I had to put my child in his crib. He might not have wanted to be in there but he was there. If the mother felt like she was getting sleepy, I wonder why she didn't put her son in his crib.
Losing a child is such an unimaginable tragedy and my heart goes out to any parent who has had to experience such a
I can definitely understand suing if you want to have someone accept responsibility/accountability and to acknowledge wrongdoing (if it took place) and I can also understand wanting to be compensated for the of cost bereavement counselling, loss of wages due to being unable to work during a period of time and for other necessary care/support that follows in the wake of such a tragedy. However seeing that someone is suing for almost double-digit millions (which is an insane amount of money) makes me glad that I live and work in a country where healthcare professionals aren't sued. Here, a patient can definitely report licensed healthcare professionals to the licensing and oversight authority but you can't sue or be sued for zillions.
I can't help it, when I hear of cases similar to this one, the large amount of money makes it seem slightly mercenary to me. You can't assign a dollar value to a human life and attempting to do so in fact has the opposite effect on me. To me, it devalues life when it's viewed in terms of a windfall.
What makes it even more unappealing to me is that if I understand this correctly, a rather large percentage of a potential settlement goes to the lawyers? If I got that part right, it serves as a powerful incentive to file even more big $ law suits (compared to if the legal team were paid a more modest fixed fee).
On a societal scale, the prevalence of law suits in the healthcare industry is bound to ultimately increase the cost of healthcare. I think it's quite unfortunate. Frankly, I think it's a sick system.
I have always said that if the US wants to reform healthcare and decrease costs... we should start with medical tort reform. HUGE problem solved
One thing I'm sincerely curious about is the way we talk about these things. This is not my area of expertise, so I must ask - is there a reason we can't just talk frankly about suffocation?? I can only imagine what a torture it is for those whose babies are accidentally suffocated, but on the other hand don't we owe to it to new/expectant moms/parents to not use euphemisms? Even nurses probably should be trained in terms of suffocation. That's what we're talking about...not some obscure condition.
So, unless I'm missing something, this concerns me. From the link:
SUPC occurs when "multiple factors act simultaneously to result in these unexpected events. The baby must have an intrinsic vulnerability, possibly blunting of the arousal response...but in the early neonatal period (the infant) also may have increased vulnerability due to post*delivery stress, presence of narcotics or magnesium sulfate given to the mother... and thirdly, there must be an additional exogenous stressor (e.g. prone position, nose in breast, covers over face with carbon dioxide retention, etc."(36, p. 22). Thus, minimization of risk is the goal.
Are there newborns who don't have these characteristics/vulnerabilities (bolded by me)? I was under the impression they all do. So then, what we are talking about (aside from narcotics/mag/etc.) is simply a normal newborn (most any newborn) + "an additional exogenous stressor" aka blocked airway.
I had similar concerns back when suffocation was being conflated with SIDS.
People need to understand and it needs to be very clear. So, although this is good information, is it just me or is yet another acronym kind of the last thing we need when we are essentially talking about suffocation?
Sudden Unexpected Postnatal Collapse?
Very sad, on my first take. Even more concerning that, must we use an acronym, we include the word "unexpected"?
Specializes in Gastroenterology; and Primary Care.
Losing a child is such an unimaginable tragedy and my heart goes out to any parent who has had to experience such a devastating loss.
I can definitely understand suing if you want to have someone accept responsibility/accountability and to acknowledge wrongdoing (if it took place) and I can also understand wanting to be compensated for the of cost bereavement counselling, loss of wages due to being unable to work during a period of time and for other necessary care/support that follows in the wake of such a tragedy. However seeing that someone is suing for almost double-digit millions (which is an insane amount of money) makes me glad that I live and work in a country where healthcare professionals aren't sued. Here, a patient can definitely report licensed healthcare professionals to the licensing and oversight authority but you can't sue or be sued for zillions.
I can't help it, when I hear of cases similar to this one, the large amount of money makes it seem slightly mercenary to me. You can't assign a dollar value to a human life and attempting to do so in fact has the opposite effect on me. To me, it devalues life when it's viewed in terms of a windfall.
What makes it even more unappealing to me is that if I understand this correctly, a rather large percentage of a potential settlement goes to the lawyers? If I got that part right, it serves as a powerful incentive to file even more big $ law suits (compared to if the legal team were paid a more modest fixed fee).
On a societal scale, the prevalence of law suits in the healthcare industry is bound to ultimately increase the cost of healthcare. I think it's quite unfortunate. Frankly, I think it's a sick system.
This is the number one reason why healthcare in the US is priced astronmically!
Mainly the reason why it's so much more expensive is because it's privatized. If we went with a government-run single payor system, healthcare costs would go WAY down.
Boymom1228
2 Posts
I had my son lady partslly so I don't know about c-section pain but why was she still in the hospital on pain meds at 4 days post delivery? Sounds like maybe she was having complications to begin with. I thought typical rules were 1 day for lady partsl and 2-3 days for c-section.
Though I can't imagine her pain (and don't want to), I'm in agreement that there is more to this story!