Baby Dies of Meth Intoxication From Breastfeeding, Mom Arrested

In a tragic new report out of Indiana, a baby has died after authorities say the child’s mother breastfeed the newborn after using methamphetamine. FOX 23 reports that 36-year-old Ashlee Rochelle Rans is held on two counts of neglect of a dependent resulting in death, as she reportedly confessed to police that she she fell asleep while breastfeeding the child and rolled over on the baby in her sleep.

“The cause and manner of death were determined by the forensic pathologist, and he determined the infant died of acute methamphetamine intoxication, and the manner of death was homicide,” Marshall County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Tami Napier said.

“Every year, we get those cases where people fall asleep with their infant in their arms in a chair or in bed or somehow end up asphyxiating an otherwise healthy child, just from unsafe practices,” Napier later added.

Rans reportedly initially told police that she had only smoked marijuana, but eventually admitted that she had been using meth for up to two days before the child’s tragic death.

She is currently in police custody at the Marshall County Jail, and if convicted, she could potentially face anywhere from 20 to 40 years behind bars.

Many social media users have since been commenting on the story, with one pointing out that it is an extreme health hazard to nursing babies when their breastfeeding mothers are using narcotics and dangerous drugs.

“Obviously if you’re doing crack, meth, etc, your baby will digest those things also,” the user tweeted out.

Recently, The Recovery Village ran a report of the effects of meth on babies, stating that a 2015 New England Journal of Medicine reports indicated that “the number of babies in America born addicted to drugs quadrupled since 2004.”

The outlet went on to report that now there are new “studies showing that many of these increases are surprisingly seen among people with higher incomes who are insured, and there’s also research showing it’s taking longer to wean newborns off the drugs they’re born addicted to.”

Sadly, the outlet added that “according to the same report, every 25 minutes a newborn is born and going through extreme withdrawal symptoms,” and “in 2013, 27 per every 1000 new babies were born addicted to narcotics.”