The mother, Monica Thompson, filed the suit last week. She cited negligence in causing "foreseeable harm" to her son Jacob Daniel Thompson and "negligent infliction of emotional distress" to her over the child's death.
He "Jacob was a true miracle baby," Monica Thompson said in a statement provided to CNN by her lawyer. "My firstborn and only son. 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."
Thompson said Jacob was taken to a nursery late so she "could rest before being discharged." She was given narcotic painkillers and sleep aids.
Around 3 a.m. on August 6, a provider, identified in the lawsuit as Nurse X, took the boy from the nursery to Thompson's room for breastfeeding. The nurse "left the room and left the mother and son unattended," the suit alleges.
About an hour after the nurse left, the suit said, Thompson woke feeling "drowsy and groggy" and "noticed her son was unresponsive in her arms."
"She called for a nurse while she tried to get him to respond," she tried to stimulate her son's suckling reflexes without success. She touched his eyes and got no response. She poked him and talked to him with no reaction.
He was taken to emergency care. He was put on life support and transferred to Randall Children's Hospital. Doctors determined that Jacob suffered "severe hypoxia" or oxygen deficiency, "and his brain was severely and permanently damaged." The parents accepted the doctors' recommendation to stop life support.
"A hospital doesn't get to load a breastfeeding mother with narcotics and sleep aids, drop a newborn child on the same bed to breastfeed, and abandon them to their luck." Attorney says."
