I can't believe this is happening.


www.essentialbaby.com.au/baby/breastfeeding/mum-sentenced-to-20-years-for-breastfeeding-death-20140405-36544.html?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Outbrain_cpc

I agree that this is highly unusual but what part can't you believe peter? the fact a baby died of a drug overdose via breast milk or the mother is being held accountable for the childs death because she conived and schemed to obtain the drugs by concealing the pregnancy?

Article reproduced from the link below.

A judge sentenced a woman in South Carolina to 20 years in prison on Friday for killing her six-week-old daughter with what prosecutors say was an overdose of morphine delivered through her breast milk. Stephanie Greene, 39, said nothing as the minimum sentence was handed down. A jury found the former nurse guilty of homicide by child abuse the day before and she could have faced up to life behind bars. Her lawyer said she will appeal and it's likely the case will be tied up for years to come. Both the prosecutor and Greene's lawyer agree no mother has ever been prosecuted in the United States for killing her child through a substance transmitted in breast milk. Greene's daughter Alexis was born healthy, but was found dead in her parents' bed just 46 days after she was born in November 2010.

An autopsy found a level of morphine in the baby's body that a pathologist testified could have been lethal for an adult. With no needle marks on the child's body, authorities decided the drugs must have gotten into the infant through her mother's milk, prosecutor Barry Barnette said. A review of her medical records showed Greene carefully hid her pregnancy from her primary doctor. After a home pregnancy test showed she was pregnant, she told her primary doctor she needed to go to a gynaecologist for a birth control.

She then got prenatal care from that doctor while not telling her all the painkillers she was taking. She also skipped appointments with her primary physician when it was obvious she was pregnant and sent her husband to pick up her painkiller prescriptions, Barnette said. "She was a nurse. She knew how to work the system," Barnette said. "She caused the loss of that child." Greene spent more than 10 years racked with chronic pain after a car wreck before her unexpected pregnancy with her husband in 2010, attorney Rauch Wise said.

Wise argued that prosecutors didn't prove how the baby got the morphine and there is little scientific evidence that enough morphine can gather in breast milk to kill an infant. Green already suffered an immeasurable loss with the death of her child and shouldn't have to face prison time, Wise said.
Society wants to portray people who need painkillers as drug addicts and horrible people, but Greene and others often are just trying to get through each day without debilitating pain, her lawyer said. "She needed those meds to get up in the morning and function," Wise said. "She was on total disability because of her pain, her fibromyalgia and all the other things wrong with her." Greene will have to serve 16 years in prison before she is eligible for parole.

petermac33 said..
Intent or lack of it. She used the drug to dull the pain not to harm her baby.

But she knew it would, else, why did she hide her pregnancy from the doctor prescribing? Because she knew that the current medical opinion was that taking such a drug posed a risk. She knew it also

I draw the line at you saying "they" in every post you make.

It must be a terribly sad existence if you see "they" and "them" in everything that happens in the world.

Act or omission leading to somebody else's death..... manslaughter.

petermac33 said..
Look where do you draw the line?

Smoking or alcohol,the list is never ending.


I actually agree that she did know there were possible harmful effects to the baby but 20 years in jail is outrageous.

Again,where do you draw the line?

its a terrible story, thanks for highlighting it, its interesting

20yrs, tough, your basically saying she was an intelligent, inspired woman who decided to use morphine regularly (which instantly suggests she was far from inspired, more addicted, sedated) so it could poison her breast milk for the sole purpose of killing her child

that doesn't appear to be the case, she appeared to be an addict to high pain killers, common in the states, they are weird, stupid with that industry and the promotion of prescribed drugs

personally I think the mom did overdose the child, not breast milk, but more direct

the highs and lows of hard pain killers is a crazy, erratic ride, mega highs, mega crazy lows, crying baby,, she was calculating, she had succumbed to addiction, a mental health state, probably did have serve pain, yep, crazy

Milsy said..

its a terrible story, thanks for highlighting it, its interesting

20yrs, tough, your basically saying she was an intelligent, inspired woman who decided to use morphine regularly (which instantly suggests she was far from inspired, more addicted, sedated) so it could poison her breast milk for the sole purpose of killing her child

that doesn't appear to be the case, she appeared to be an addict to high pain killers, common in the states, they are weird, stupid with that industry and the promotion of prescribed drugs

I've got to agree. I spent a couple of months in the company of doctors and trainee doctors from the states, and they seemed to have an incredible list of drugs for different 'conditions'. I guess no one wants to accept they have problems, and just want the drug to fix it.

petermac33 said..
Intent or lack of it. She used the drug to dull the pain not to harm her baby.


She should not have used the drug,certainly not in that amount.


What is next,15 years in jail if you smoke and your baby dies from a complication "they say" related to smoking?

absolutely.

In the article it mentions she was taking morphine for the pain of a car accident suffered 10 years ago.

An addiction yes,but possibly a needed addiction.

I am sure if she knew that the morphine she was taking would harm her baby then she would not have breast fed her baby,just used bottled milk Instead.

The precedent has now been set,smoke,drink or do some drugs while breast feeding and you run the risk of being criminally prosecuted were the substances to show up in the baby.

I don't believe any mother would deliberately harm her baby,well one in a million maybe.

To put her in jail for 20 years based on a theory of intent seems harsh.

Over and out.

petermac33 said...
I don't believe any mother would deliberately harm her baby,well one in a million maybe.

To put her in jail for 20 years based on a theory of intent seems harsh.

Over and out.

But Pete, that's not what she was binned for, it's unlikely intent was something prosecutors had to prove. According to the article she was charge with homicide by child abuse not wilful murder. She probably would have won the trial if she didn't do overt acts calculated to decieve her GP to get more drugs whilst pregnant and later breast feeding.

There's something we're missing in this story.

If the mother was on the morphine all the way through the pregnancy, then so was the baby. The baby would have been totally morphine tolerant - and in fact would have been withdrawing from the morphine just like any heroin junky.

Getting a little bit in the breast milk then would not have affected this baby.

Methinks the more likely explanation is mum deliberately murdered baby. Not the first, won't be the last.

But this is really hard to prove. So much easier to blame the breast milk, (no doubt this was her defence).

Prosecution would have gone along with it as they could still nail her like that.

I just pity the poor mothers that are going stress about poisoning their babies everytime they have a drink etc. again, for the nerds out there, the concentration of alcohol in mum's breast milk will be the same as their blood - maybe if they are truly rotten 0.2% I defy you to get drunk drinking an alcoholic beverage with that concentration.

No doctor is ever going to come out and say it is safe to breastfeed when drunk - we all think it but no-one will say it because it would be advocating drinking while being in charge of a little baby.

^^^ not necessarily. My understanding of opiates is that if they are taking it for pain relief and it still hurts you take more in increments until you find the sweet spot. So a normal person might need x amount of morphine to relieve pain from a specific injury. An addict might be able to tolerate 20 times that dose. Now go and correlate an addicts dose with what you might ordinarily give a newborn. And that's even assuming you would give a newborn morphine and they metabolise it like an adult would.