A new mother who accidentally smothered her 4-day-old baby in a hospital bed has filed an $8.6 million lawsuit against Portland Adventist Medical Center. 
 
 Monica Thompson faults the Southeast Portland hospital for putting her newborn, Jacob, in bed with her in middle of the night so she could breastfeed him while she was unsupervised and heavily medicated with painkillers and sleep aids. 
 
 Thompson dozed off, then awoke to find that Jacob wasn't breathing on Aug. 6, 2012, according to the lawsuit filed last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court. 
 
 Jacob suffered catastrophic brain damage, and his parents removed him from life support six days later after doctors told them that his comatose state was irreversible. 
 
 Kristi Spurgeon Johnson, a spokeswoman for Portland Adventist Medical Center, said Wednesday she couldn't comment on the lawsuit until the hospital has had a chance to review it. She also declined comment about the hospital's policies about newborns sharing beds with mothers. 
 
 The suit highlights a grave area of concern in pediatrics: parents sleeping in the same beds with their children, including mothers sharing hospital beds with their newborns. 
 
 The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended in 2011 against bed-sharing. A 2014 study in the Journal of Perinatology catalogued the deaths of 15 healthy infants while sharing beds with their mothers in U.S. maternity wards. 
 
 Jacob was the first child of Monica and Graham Thompson. He was born by Caesarean section on Aug. 2, 2012, according to the suit. 
 
 Monica Thompson was medicated with Ambien and Vicodin a few hours before a nurse walked into Thompson’s room, gave her the baby and left around 3 a.m. on Aug. 6, 2012, according to the suit. The suit states that about an hour later, Monica Thompson was “still drowsy and groggy” when she realized her son wasn’t moving. 
 
 “She called for a nurse while she tried to get him to respond,” the suit states. “... She poked him and talked to him with no reaction. When no nurse came to help, Mrs. Thompson carried her son to the hallway and frantically yelled for help.” 
 
 The suit states that Jacob was stabilized and transferred to Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, where he died when he was 10 days old on Aug. 12, 2012, after he was taken off life support. 
 
 The suit seeks damages for the baby’s “desperation and anxiety” as he was suffocated and his mother’s “severe emotional distress upon unintentionally killing her firstborn child.” The suit also seeks compensation for Monica Thompson’s counseling expenses for depression and post traumatic stress disorder. 
 
 The suit was filed by Lake Oswego attorney Diego Conde. Read the lawsuit here. 
 
 -- Aimee Green 
 
 agreen@oregonian.com 
 
 o_aimee ||||| PORTLAND, Ore. – A mother who accidentally smothered her newborn is suing a Portland hospital for $8.6 million, claiming they left the infant with her unattended after giving her pain killers and sleep aids. 
 
 The lawsuit, filed Friday, claims that Portland Adventist Medical Center is at fault for the death of Monica Thompson’s ten-day-old son Jacob. 
 
 Thompson gave birth to Jacob on August 2, 2012 via C-section. He was a healthy baby boy with no conditions or ailments, the report says. 
 
 Three days later, Jacob was taken to a nursery so Thompson could recover and be discharged from the hospital. 
 
 The suit claims the hospital gave Thompson “a combination of narcotic pain killers and sleep aids” at about midnight, and a nurse brought Jacob to her about 3 a.m. so she could breastfeed. 
 
 “About an hour later, still drowsy and groggy, Mrs. Thompson noticed her son was unresponsive in her arms,” the lawsuit states. 
 
 Staff performed emergency procedures, and the boy was placed on life support. He was pronounced deceased at ten days old. 
 
 The lawsuit alleges negligence on the part of the hospital for medicating the breastfeeding mother, putting the infant in her bed without supervision, and not having clear policies or enforcement on the dangers that the combination could create. 
 
 The lawsuit is also seeking relief for the emotional distress for "unintentionally killing her firstborn child." 
 
 In total, the lawsuit is seeking $8,600,000 in relief. The suit was filed by the Conde Law Group of Lake Oswego. ||||| A brave mum has opened up about her son’s tragic death on would have been his fifth birthday. 
 
 Jillian Johnson thought she was doing everything right. She had read all the books and taken all the courses to prepare for the birth of her first child. 
 
 She was encouraged to exclusively breastfeed, but just three days into her son Landon's short life, paramedics were called to her California home and her precious baby boy was put on life support. 
 
 Jillian tells Be that she's telling her heartbreaking story to help other new parents, and in a moving blog post shared by the Fed is Best Foundation, she explains that she and her husband Jarrod had been ingrained with the motto “breast is best” and chose a “baby friendly” hospital – that is, one that encourages breastfeeding - to deliver their baby boy. 
 
 Landon James was born via caesarean section on February 25, 2012, and went straight to breastfeeding, with Jillian told he had “a great latch and was doing fine”. 
 
 One lactation consultant noted however, that Jillian may have trouble producing milk as she has been diagnosed with POCS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and Landon was her first child. 
 
 The other issue is that he was always crying. Newborn babies tend to feed and sleep, but Landon was constantly screaming - screaming and nursing. 
 
 “Landon cried. And cried. All the time,” Jilian writes, “He cried unless he was on the breast and I began to nurse him continuously.” 
 
 “The nurses would come in and swaddle him in warm blankets to help get him to sleep. And when I asked them why he was always on my breast, I was told it was because he was ‘cluster feeding’. 
 
 “I recalled learning all about that in the classes I had taken, and being a first time mum, I trusted my doctors and nurses to help me through this – even more so since I was pretty heavily medicated from my emergency c-section and this was my first baby.” 
 
 RELATED: Must read: The moving story of darling toddler Nate 
 
 During his first 24 hours of life, Landon had spent nine hours nursing but had lost close to five per cent of his body weight. By the time another 26 hours had passed, that number had increased to almost 10 per cent. 
 
 The Australian Breastfeeding Association says the general guidelines for newborns’ weight loss is that, “a baby loses 5-10 per cent of birth weight in the first week and regains this by 2-3 weeks.” However they stress that this is advice is general. 
 
 As his weight loss was within a “normal” range, Jillian and Landon were discharged from hospital. 
 
 “So we took him home….not knowing that after less than 12 hours home with us, he would have gone into cardiac arrest caused by dehydration,” she writes. 
 
 Jillian found Landon unresponsive, pulseless and blue after he fell asleep following a feed. 
 
 He was rushed to hospital and immediately taken to the neonatal intensive care unit where a devastated Jillian was told, “sure breast is best, but follow with the bottle. This way you know your baby has eaten enough.” 
 
 “If only I could go back in time,” she writes. 
 
 An MRI showed that Landon had suffered a brain injury caused by lack of oxygen due to dehydration, and his life support was turned off on March 15. 
 
 “I still have many, many days of guilt and questions – what if I would’ve just given him a bottle? And anger because how would I have known.” 
 
 Five years on from Landon's tragic death, Jillian and Jarrod have become parents to two gorgeous girls and celebrate their son's birthday every year. 
 
 Jillian, who lives by the motto "be so busy loving your life you have no time for hate, regret or fear", tells Be, "we have two beautiful girls, Stella who will be four in March, and Aliona who is 18 months. 
 
 "We talk about Landon all the time. We have pictures of him up throughout the house. Our girls know who he is and we celebrate his birthday and acknowledge him on holidays." 
 
 She is sharing her heartache in the hope that other new parents will find the information the need when breastfeeding. 
 
 "I realised in my grieving that there could be so many more parents that needed to hear it or talk about it but were never given the opportunity," she says. 
 
 "I had the opportunity to get the dialogue started and it needed to be done. I only wish I did it sooner. I'm so grateful knowing there's a foundation dedicated to educating parents on the importance of feeding your newborn - whether supplementing or breastfeeding. I'm pro-feeding. Plain and simple," she adds, referring to the Fed is Best Foundation. 
 
 Better Health Victoria has more information on bottle and breastfeeding newborns, and you can call the Australian Breastfeeding Association’s mum’s helpline on 1800 686 268 seven days a week. 
 
 Pregnancy, Birth and Baby recommends speaking to your doctor if your baby is not gaining weight and is nor settling after nursing when cluster feeding. 
 
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– Monica Thompson tried for 12 years to get pregnant, so when she had her first child, Jacob, she called him her "miracle baby." Tragically, he didn't live past day 10. Now the mother of a toddler girl, Thompson is suing Portland Adventist Medical Center in Oregon for $8.6 million, faulting the hospital for negligence and a lack of clear policies, reports KATU. That's because Thompson, who gave birth to a healthy boy on Aug. 2, 2012, was on Ambien and Vicodin when hospital staff brought 4-day-old Jacob to nurse in the hospital bed with her, unsupervised, at 3am. When she woke up groggy an hour later, he was unresponsive. "She called for a nurse while she tried to get him to respond," her lawsuit, filed last Friday, states. "When no nurse came to help, [she] carried her son to the hallway and frantically yelled for help." He was quickly stabilized, but doctors determined he had suffered severe hypoxia and permanent brain damage. He was taken off life support on Aug. 12, reports the Oregonian. While Thompson is suing the hospital for negligence and relief for the emotional distress of "unintentionally killing her firstborn child," her attorney tells People that her "biggest hope" is for hospitals to "set clear policies for their nurses to avoid something as senseless as dropping off a child for breastfeeding to a mom loaded with narcotics and painkillers." The hospital says it is reviewing the claims and that "our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the family." (This mom sued a hospital over a breastfeeding mix-up.)