Here's today's update on the "breastfeeding poisoning" case. Too bad
they didn't figure this out before breastfeeding was maligned all over
the Washington Post.
Kathy
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http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-11/26/098l-112697-idx.html
Va. Mother Arrested in Baby's Death
Painkiller Was Found In Body of 11-Day-Old
By Sylvia Moreno
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 26, 1997; Page D01
The Washington Post
A 20-year-old woman was arrested and charged with the murder of her
11-day-old baby boy, who died of an overdose of a prescription
painkiller, Fairfax County authorities said yesterday.
Elvia Garcia, a Mexican immigrant who said she has lived in Northern
Virginia for nearly five years, was being held without bond yesterday at
the Fairfax jail. She was charged Monday night after Fairfax police
detectives questioned her.
The baby, named Ivan and born Oct. 29, died Nov. 9. Authorities said
toxicology test results that became available Monday showed that the
child died of an overdose of tramadol hydrochloride.
Garcia had told police she was taking the drug, marketed under the name
Ultram, to relieve pain after the birth of her child. The bottle, she
said, came from the child's grandmother, who had received a prescription
to ease shoulder pain.
Although police initially explored the possibility that the young mother
had accidentally poisoned her child by passing the drug to him through
her breast milk, the investigation indicated otherwise, Fairfax police
spokesman Warren Carmichael said.
"The investigation revealed she was upset over her domestic situation
and she administered a quantity of the drug to the infant," he said.
He would not elaborate on any domestic problems experienced by Garcia.
She lives in a three-bedroom trailer in the Audubon Estates trailer park
in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County, with the child's father,
her 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son, and the father's parents.
Neither police nor the medical examiner's office would discuss how the
drug allegedly was given to the infant. An affidavit prepared by a
Fairfax detective said only that "high levels" of the drug were found in
the baby's body. A bottle containing seven 50-milligram Ultram tablets
was taken by police from Garcia's home last week.
"When toxicology results indicated that the dosage had been fatal, we
focused on the method of introduction, which subsequently led to the
arrest," Carmichael said.
Garcia is to appear at a Dec. 10 hearing in Juvenile and Domestic
Relations Court, which handles cases in which the victim is a juvenile.
The father, Isaac Garcia, and the child's grandmother, Maria Garcia,
declined yesterday to comment on the arrest. It was Maria Garcia's
prescription bottle that police seized as evidence in the case.
From jail, Elvia Garcia also refused an interview request yesterday.
But in an interview over the weekend, she said she used tramadol because
the ibuprofen that she was given at the hospital after Ivan's birth did
not ease her pelvic pain.
She also said at the time that she did not give any of the drug directly
to the baby. She said she was breast-feeding him and feeding him formula
in a bottle before his death.
Garcia, who said she came to the United States from the Mexican state of
Durango, is unemployed. The father works in construction. According to
Maria Garcia, who also was interviewed over the weekend, the father's
side of the family came to Northern Virginia several years ago from
Houston.
That family, also originally from Mexico, had lived in Texas at least 17
years.
The men in the family moved north several years ago in search of better
pay, Maria Garcia said. Her son, Isaac, began living with Elvia Garcia.
Inside their neatly kept home are pictures and images of Mexico's most
beloved virgins, the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Virgin of San Juan de
los Lagos. Several large plaster models of the baby Jesus are encased
inside a glass cabinet along one wall of the living room.
In the bedroom, where Elvia Garcia slept with her infant and 1-year-old
son, there were children's toys spilling out of a closet and a bag
filled with tiny plastic-lined diapers hanging on one wall.
Tramadol has been known to cause addiction and seizures in certain
patients, prompting a warning last year to doctors by the Food and Drug
Administration and the manufacturer, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical. The
drug is not intended for use by anyone younger than 16 and is not
recommended for nursing mothers.
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Kathy Koch, BSEd, IBCLC
Mom to Andrew, Abigail and Molly
LLL Leader, AAPL/OL for VA and MD/DE/DC
[log in to unmask] Great Mills, MD, USA
"Within the child lies the fate of the future." Maria Montessori
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