Mother Injects Infant Daughter With Unknown Substance In Hospital Room, Gets Caught By Staff

A mother has allegedly been caught injecting her infant daughter with an unknown substance while inside a hospital room in Ohio.

The child remains in critical care after suffering a cardiac arrest while the mother is in police custody.

The 9-month-old baby was receiving treatment at the Nationwide Children's Hospital on May 5 when the incident took place. Both her parents were in the hospital room with her at the time, Columbus Dispatch reported.

The child's mother, identified as 26-year-old Stephanie Whitley, of Columbus, allegedly injected an unknown substance in the child's body using a syringe while the baby was being treated.

A hospital staff member raised the alarm after witnessing the mother's actions.

The infant was transferred to the intensive care unit, where she went into cardiac arrest.

The child was administered CPR and currently remains in critical care at the hospital, according to WSYX ABC 6.

The Columbus Division of Police Physical Abuse Unit was contacted at 11:31 a.m., after the incident.

Officials issued an arrest warrant and took Whitley into custody on the same day. She was taken to the Franklin County Jail on a charge of felonious assault and is currently being held on no bond after her arraignment in Franklin County Municipal Court on May 6.

The mother is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing on May 15.

It is likely that toxicology tests were conducted to identify the substance that the infant girl was injected with. However, officials did not immediately reveal what the substance was.

Officials urged anyone with any information about the incident to get in touch with Detective Andre Edwards of the Columbus Police Special Investigations Child Abuse Unit at 614-645-4305 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS(8477).

In an unrelated incident reported last year, a 9-month-old baby was killed in Trinidad and Tobago after her mother allegedly injected her with a poisonous substance. The mother was reportedly frustrated over the baby's constant crying and allegedly injected her with insecticide. The infant was later found unresponsive and then taken to the hospital, where she was declared dead. Police interrogated the mother, who admitted to poisoning her child.