Mom Taints Child's Feeding Tube with Feces: Police
By FRANK HEINZ
Updated 12:30 PM CST, Wed, Jun 3, 2009
An Austin woman has been caught on a hospital surveillance video putting feces into her 3-year-old's feeding tube, police said.
Emily McDonald, 23, is charged with injury to a child, a first-degree felony, after investigators said she put her child's life at risk by tainting her feeding tube.
Dell Children's Hospital admitted McDonald's daughter on April 15 with reports of high fever and a long history of chronic diarrhea. While admitted, the hospital staff became suspicious and placed a surveillance camera inside the child's room.
On the video, McDonald can be seen putting fecal matter into her daughter's feeding tube with fecal matter taken from her diaper.
Ingesting fecal matter can cause sepsis, where toxins enter the blood and can cause fatal illnesses in babies with immature immune systems.
Hospital staff called the Austin police, who later learned from McDonald that she had tainted her daughter's feeding tube five times while in the hospital, KXAN reported.
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First Published: Jun 3, 2009 12:12 PM CST
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