A while back, Kathleen Auerbach asked if anyone had more details on a New
York City case of a breastfed baby who died (last February), and whose
young mother was charged with "starving" the baby.  This sad case of
breastfeeding mismanagement and its aftermath for this family is reported
again in today's (October 26, 1998) New York Times, p. A21.  The mother had
been turned away from her scheduled 1 week visit because she lacked a
medicare card or the $25 to pay for the visit herself.  She was sent on a
merry-go-round of fruitless inquiries to obtain the card.  After the baby's
death at 5 weeks she was jailed on charges of criminally negligant homicide
and second degree manslaughter.  The article says that charges were dropped
after an outpouring of protest and testimony from pediatricians and
lactation experts "that even their best-educated breast-feeding patients do
not recognize when a baby is not thriving until the infant is weighed
during a routine checkup."

What makes me sad is that this 21 year old mother was trying to do what was
best for her baby by breastfeeding.  She has an almost 2 year old
formula-fed son with asthma.  He was removed from her care during her
arrest in her baby daughter's death, and she has so far not been able to
get him back.  She has been allowed to visit him only 2 hours every 2
weeks.  The photo accompanying the article shows her lovingly holding him
(as he sucks on his bottle).

If there are any hopeful notes in this sad story, they are that over the
objections of the city, the little boy was removed from foster care and
placed with the mother's 46 year old stepfather, and that the hospital
which refused to see the mother and her new baby at 1 week of age is
completing a 60 day program of staff re-education.   The mother, oldest of
11 orphaned siblings, has completed training as a bank teller and is living
at a private, nonprofit shelter that reunites mothers and children.  The
story is a horrific example of people in the U.S., falling through the
cracks in care for new mothers and babies.
Anne Altshuler, RN, MS, IBCLC and LLL leader in Madison, Wisconsin
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