Should Woman Get 5 Years in Prison for Drunken Breastfeeding?

This is a non-issue generated by sensationalized reporting. The woman pleaded guilty to child neglect, which carries a maximum sentence of 5 years. She has not been sentenced, and it is not clear that the breastfeeding incident carried much weight beyond alarming the officers who responded to the domestic dispute. Child neglect is a serious crime and should not be lightly passed over. The woman also has a long criminal record, 27 convictions in 8 years. She's not an innocent, young mother railroaded by an overly harsh judicial system.

As I recall this women called the police because she was being abused by her spouse. They happened to arrive and find she was nursing her 6 month old and appeared intoxicated. First of all did anyone get a blood alcohol on the infant, how about the mom? I think this is a case of abuse from the police along with the husband and fear caused this women to plead guilty. Alcohol enters and exits human milk with out binding to it. Which means that there is a lag time after drinking for the milk to have alcohol in it, but how much is really available for the infant to metabolize will depend on how much is available from moms blood, as blood level drops so does the level of alcohol in milk level. Typically infants don't like the taste and will take in less. So one would need moms milk, moms blood and infants blood to test. At the very least infants blood. So if the alcohol level goes down in the blood stream it also does so in the milk. So while she well have been intoxicated,no one seems to know how intoxicated, it appears some overly zealous people have convicted her with out a lot of evidence. In history do we really think that women through out time women have not drunk alcohol while breastfeeding or pregnant? Fact there was a time when the ALCOHOL WAS SAFER THAN THE WATER. While that may no longer be case the fact remains it happens. I am not pro-breastfeeding moms or pregnant moms drinking. But I am also a realist some one needs to help this family not send the mom to jail. The issue here is not alcohol in human milk but can an intoxicated parent care for an infant. How about abusive father in home and is he intoxicated, does he smoke? HOW about women who are pregnant smoking cigarettes should they all go to jail? While they should not smoke there is some rights of the person who owns the body. Feminists should be all over this. And any attorney who represents this mom and infant should understand that with out blood alcohol of infant there is no case.

First I would just like to say that the age of the baby is unclear. The print says 6 months but the video says 6 weeks.

Was she actually breastfeeding or attempting to breastfeed. As the video pointed out that was the last straw and knowing how breastfeediing works it would have taken a while for this particular woman's body in her condition to let down her milk if at all. If she was stopped before that happened then there would be no crime . Of course any good lawyer would be able to bring this out in a court of law . I would think she should be held accountable for the other forms of abuse and they would hold more weight when prosecuting this woman. So my answer to should she do time, NO. Does she need help YES!

As an aside I wish that the media would stop putting breastfeeding out there in a negative way whenever there is a chance. The world needs more breastfed babies.

neither thing she did was against the law . We can't imprison people for doing legal things.

Give her baby to a Mormon family (they don't drink - or at least it is highly unlikely). The family could raise the child until it is 18, then tell him/her about his/her real mother and why he/she was taken away. Let the adult child make a decision about establishing a relationship with their biological mom.

It might also be a reasonable choice to perform a bilateral radical mastectomy, or at least offer her the option. That way, she could avoid potential breast cancer , avoid prison, keep on drinking (and neglect her child in other ways), and reduce costs of incarceration. I belief that the radical mastectomy would probably be in keeping with an Islamic form of punishment (they chop off the hands of thieves, for example).

Another alternative might be to consider a brain transplant for this woman.

Tell her to put the liquor in a baby bottles. That would be a good way for her to bond with her child. They could share.

While it is obviously not a good idea or recommended to breastfeed while intoxicated, it is not known to cause damage to the breastfeeding baby. There has only been one case of alcohol consumption affecting a breastfed baby and that was with a mother who was a severe alcoholic. Obviously, more research needs to be done in this area before we start accusing mothers of child abuse just for nursing while intoxicated. We do know that there are many health risks associated with formula feeding. We known those risks outweigh any risks of an occasional drink or two while breastfeeding. We don't know what the risks of nursing while intoxicated are currently, but it's nothing like pumping out a gin & tonic. The body does metabolize (at least some of) the alcohol before it reaches the breast milk. We don't arrest parents for feeding babies kool aid in a bottle or making other poor nutritional choices for their children . It's too hard of a line to draw.

My knowledge of this situation is only based on this video, and it appears that there are other concerning issues with this woman's mothering. She definitely needs help to get out of an abusive situation and be supported in her mothering. A young mother in her situation who chooses to breastfeed made that decision because she wants the best for her baby. She should not be separated from her baby and should be supported to continue breastfeeding. The benefits of breastfeeding and bonding with the mother can have a tremendous positive impact on this baby that seems to have been more into a stressful situation.

To answer the headline directly, no. Talk about a nanny state...

This is stupid, squared.

Politicians won't rest until everyone is a criminal and all children are raised exclusively through their indoctrination process... Aren't the Public Schools enough already?

I guess they just want more control... They never have enough.

Big Brother is getting dangerously close to forcing parents of every walk of life to kill to keep their own children.

While I don't condone her behavior, woe be to anyone who tries to take my son from me. The only mark I can put against this woman, is failing to defend her child from true evil.

CPS are the ones who should be locked up.

Why would you want to shoot here, really, what's the big deal? It still beats the filth you buy off the shelf... You may as well lock up any parents who ever fed their kid McDonald's. That is much worse.

And so is Fox News. The woman was not arrested for breastfeeding drunk, she was arrested for neglecting and abusing her child.