Mother didn’t give baby methadone

A breastfeeding mother didn’t deliberately give her baby boy methadone, a coronial inquest into his death has found.

The six-month-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found face down in his cot and not breathing on May 27, 2003.

He later died at Sydney’s St George Hospital and tests found methadone present in his blood.

A coronial inquest into the boy’s death was reopened at the request of his parents after one six years ago failed to produce a conclusive finding.

NSW Coroner Sharon Freund on Wednesday said the direct cause of the boy’s death remained unclear.

But she rejected the conclusion, made in the earlier inquest, that the baby had received methadone from a source other than breast milk.

“The fresh evidence before this inquest has led to my conclusion,” she told Glebe Coroner’s Court.

“It therefore follows that many of the conclusions and recommendations that flowed from it can no longer be made, in particular that Max received methadone from a source other than breast milk.”

The boy’s mother told the inquest he was suffering from a cold in the days leading up to his death and wasn’t eating properly.

The inquest had heard the baby had been wrapped tightly in a sheet and placed in a bassinet on his back with a dummy, but was later found face down between a pillow and the side of a cot.

But the coroner said there was were “too many variables and unknowns” to support the parents’ claim the baby’s death was as a result of positional asphyxiation.

Ms Freund also ruled out a deliberate overdose.

“(The) child was clearly loved by both his parents who have sought, despite their less than ideal circumstances, to have the conclusions and recommendations made in the first inquest tested and examined,” she said.

“I cannot be satisfied on balance that the admission (to hospital) was as a result of an exogenous dosing of methadone, that is ingestion of methadone by the baby other than by way of breast milk.”

AAP sm

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