A babysitter in Taipei has been charged with accidentally poisoning an infant after putting sedatives into the baby’s milk to keep him quiet, prosecutors said yesterday.
The woman in her 30s, surnamed Mao (毛), has contravened Criminal Code provisions on “causing injury,” the Taipei Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office said.
It recommended that she be given a heavy penalty in accordance with the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act (兒童及少年福利與權益保障法), because she “deliberately committed a crime against the child.”
Mao did not have a babysitter’s license, the office added.
The incident occurred in Mao’s home on April 4, after the baby’s mother left the nine-month-old in Mao’s care, prosecutors said.
Mao put a sedative drug she obtained from a hospital into the milk she prepared for the baby to put him to sleep, they said.
The boy’s mother later picked up the boy and took him home, but could not wake him up and took him to Shin Kong Hospital in Shilin District.
Doctors ran a blood test on the boy and found that he had been given a substance containing benzodiazepines, a type of sedative medication.
His mother called the police upon learning the diagnosis, prosecutors said.
The boy has since been treated and discharged from hospital, they added.
Benzodiazepines are a class of depressants used to treat conditions such as anxiety, insomnia and seizures.
Large doses could cause poisoning in infants, prosecutors said, citing a National Taiwan University Hospital report.
Prosecutors said that Mao, who had been caring for the baby since March and was paid NT$250 an hour, admitted putting sedatives into the boy’s milk to stop him crying.
Mao had been prescribed the drugs by Taipei City Hospital’s Kunming branch to treat an eating disorder, they said.
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