A Winnipeg mother has admitted to poisoning her young son with salt water for eight months and continuing to endanger his life under the nose of medical staff after he was hospitalized.
The 28-year-old woman appeared in a Winnipeg court Wednesday and pleaded guilty to a single count of aggravated assault.
The woman’s actions “threatened (her son’s) life, caused him to receive unnecessary medical care and subjected him to unnecessary medical procedures,” Crown attorney Brett Rach told provincial court Judge Murray Thompson, reading from an agreed statement of facts.
The woman cannot be named as it would identify her son, who is now seven years old.
By the time he was five, the boy had been hospitalized 21 times, admitted to the emergency department 29 times, logged “numerous” visits to his family doctor and medical specialists, and had been diagnosed with 10 medical conditions.
Court was told Child and Family Services opened a file with the family in July 2017, and initiated a safety plan that required the child’s paternal grandmother to supervise him while his father was at work.
By 2019, health care providers became concerned the boy’s repeated hospitalizations may have been due to fabricated or induced illness in a child, previously referred to as Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
Fabricated or induced illness in a child is a form of child abuse that occurs when a caregiver purposely makes a child ill or fabricates symptoms of illness and then seeks medical care.
In early 2020, Child and Family Services started placing support workers in the boy’s home during work hours. A psychological assessment around the same time recommended the boy’s mother complete specialized counselling, but due to the pandemic, she was unable to participate until the following October.
In February 2021, the boy was admitted to hospital for nausea, pain and vomiting.
“At that time, the episodes were undiagnosed, they were not fabricated or exaggerated and there was no evidence to support they were being induced,” Rach said, reading from the agreed statement of facts.
In a subsequent text exchange with her husband, the woman referenced a “crystal substance” found under the boy’s nose and expressed concern doctors would blame her. “They are from the liquid meds, the antibiotics,” she said. “They will blame me for it.”
In November 2021, the boy was admitted to hospital seriously ill with suspected hypernatremia, which results from high concentrations of sodium in the blood.
The boy was treated and released but was back in hospital again in May 2022 suffering the same symptoms.
Over the course of nine days, the boy’s sodium levels spiked eight times and he underwent multiple medical procedures.
Medical staff agreed “salt toxicity needed to be considered” and barred the boy’s mother from attending the hospital, Rach said. Over the course of a week, the boy’s sodium levels and health returned to normal.
In September 2022, the boy’s mother made a shocking disclosure to her now estranged husband: for eight months she had been using a syringe to shoot a salt solution up their son’s nose at night.
In an email to her husband in January 2023, the woman “admitted she did not do anything to (the boy) during the daytime because she was scared she would get caught,” Rach said. “She said she didn’t know why she did things to (her son).”
The woman said when the boy was hospitalized in February 2021, she would inject salt water into the boy’s nose when his grandmother was sleeping or in the bathroom and then hide the syringe in her bra. She also admitted feeding the boy raw beef and raw chicken juice and caused him to contract conjunctivitis after putting dishwater in his eye.
In court Wednesday, the woman replied with a quivering “Yes” when asked if she accepted the facts as provided to court.
The woman is not expected to be sentenced until early next year, following the completion of several reports examining her mental status and risk to the community.
Court heard the Crown will be seeking a “significant” penitentiary sentence. The maximum sentence for aggravated assault is 14 years in prison.
The woman remains out of custody, under conditions she have no contact with her son and that she not be alone with any child under the age of 12.
dean.pritchard@freepress.com
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
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