NCJ Number
207726
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 49 Issue: 6 Dated: November 2004 Pages: 1358-1360
Date Published
November 2004
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This paper reports on a case investigated by the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in which an infant died from oxycodone intoxication.
Abstract
The decedent was a 10-month-old African-American male. The child's medical history was significant only for a recent 102-degree fever, which the mother was allegedly treating with acetaminophen. The mother was using Roxycodone, Fiorcet with codeine #3, and Soma. Both the mother and her husband had been instructed that she was not to breast-feed the child while taking these medications. On the day prior to her son's death, the mother admitted to taking two 30 mg oxycodone tablets (Roxycodone) at 1100, 1430, and 1700 hours. She further claimed that she had been breast-feeding the baby only three times daily since earlier that year, as she was adding solid food to the baby's diet. On the day he died, the child was breast-fed once on the plane that brought them to Baltimore, MD. The autopsy found that the child's liver concentration of oxycodone was 1.6 mg/kg; the heart blood oxycodone concentration was 0.6 mg/L. No other drugs or volatile substances were detected. The cause of death in this case was clearly oxycodone intoxication. The medical examiner ruled that the manner of death was homicide, since the mother either purposefully administered the infant oxycodone or, through neglect, allowed the infant to be exposed to oxycodone in the mother's breast milk. 5 references