A few years ago here in Northern Virginia, a 10-day-old baby died of a
prescription drug overdose.  The mother's breastfeeding was immediately and
widely reported as the suspected delivery device for the drug and it was
covered as a mixture of tragedy and horrible irresponsibility.  The autopsy
of the infant showed drug levels that were just incredibly high and
fortunately the pathologist knew enough about milk/plasma ratios to
recognize that it was an impossibility for the baby to have received that
amount of drug via the mother's milk.  So the mother confessed - she'd
crushed sleeping pills and given them to the baby in formula, not with
intent to kill the baby, but just to make him sleep more.

The original "breastfeeding suspected in tragic infant death" story was
front-page news in all the local papers, and a lead story on all the TV
news.  The follow up FACTS about the baby's death were much less widely
covered, of course, and all of those follow-up stories included the "fact"
that police had originally suspected that the baby died from drugs in the
mother's milk.  <sigh>  It was terrible, irresponsible coverage but about
what I've come to expect from the news media.

I believe there was an infant death in California related to mom's ingesting
amphetamines?  Anyone remember?

Feeling horribly cynical at 6am, which is not a good way to start the day.

Mary Renard, RN, BSN, IBCLC, LLLL
Vienna Virginia  USA

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