Mother claims hospital error kept her from newborn daughter

With her contractions coming every two to three minutes, Michelle Tattoli wasn't sure she'd make it to the hospital in time to give birth to her fifth child.

EMS technicians weren't so sure, either. They rushed Tattoli to Saint Clare's Hospital in Sussex Borough, N.J.—a tiny 41-bed facility with no maternity department—that is less than two miles from her home. There, she labored for seven hours before giving birth to a 7-lb., 7-oz. baby girl.

Within 24 hours of the Nov. 4, 2005, delivery, both Tattoli and her daughter, Annalyse Elizabeth Claire, were transferred to the Denville, N.J., campus of Saint Clare's Hospital, one that is better equipped to handle newborns and their mothers. Tattoli, however, didn't get much time to forge a bond with her new daughter. Three days after Tattoli gave birth, the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) took her daughter away from her upon learning that traces of the powerful painkiller Percocet (oxycodone HCl/acetaminophen, USP) had been found in the infant's urine.

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