A New York mother has been charged with with poisoning her 4-year-old daughter with “life-threatening levels” of seizure meds.
Authorities say they believe Tajahnae Brown, 23, suffers from Munchausen’s syndrone by proxy, in which someone induces or invents illness in someone in their care for attention.
Prosecutors say Brown made 190 trips to medical providers seeking the unnecessary drugs for her daughter, the New York Post reported.
Authorities were alerted to the situation on May 2, when Brown brought the little girl, then 3, to Montefiore Medical Center and told staff she was on seizure medicine and needed more.
“She made repeated statements that the child needed the meds that got the staff to administer more doses,” a police source told the Post.
Staff eventually realized the child had “toxic levels” of the medications in her system, the source said, adding that she was “being poisoned by the meds.”
The staff told Brown about the high levels of the drug and took the girl off. She stayed at the hospital with her mother as the drug levels went down, but then they spiked again.
The source told The Post that Brown managed to “discretely administer the meds to life-threatening levels.”
The hospital contacted the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, which called in police. The investigation determined that Brown had made nearly 200 trips to providers to get the drug prescriptions.
Brown has no prior criminal record. She was arraigned on Friday and granted supervised release with electronic monitoring.
WABC said Brown was charged with attempted murder, attempted manslaughter, and assault. Her daughter, who is expected to make full recovery, was placed with another family member.
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