Newborn Given To Another Mother To Nurse: Mother's Lawsuit Dismissed
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
Septempber 1998
Quick Summary: The infant was the victim, not the mother. The infant was not harmed. The mother cannot sue.
As a general rule, a victim of a healthcare professional’s negligence has a legally protected interest in psychological as well as physical well-being. SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MAINE, 1998.
A nursing student participating in a clinical rotation took a seven and one-half hour-old infant from the newborn nursery and gave him to the wrong mother to breast-feed. After three to five minutes, the error was discovered and the infant was taken from her and returned to the nursery.
The real mother did not witness what happened to her baby. She did not even know about it until a nurse informed her an hour later of what had happened.
The real mother filed suit, on her own behalf and on behalf of her son. The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine ruled the lawsuit should be dismissed as unfounded.
The mother made a claim for negligence for a failure to inform her and warn her of the potential adverse side effects of her infant being breast-fed by another mother. However, according to the court, the mother failed to produce any evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship between the failure to inform her and warn her of possible side effects and any psychological harm she suffered.
The baby, the court ruled, was the only victim, and the baby was not harmed. Champagne v. Medical Center, 711 A. 2d 842 (Me., 1998).