Mother rejects accusations of mistreatment
PJ police are attempting to reconstruct the four months of life of baby Santiago, admitted to hospital on August 4 in a critical condition, and still gravely ill.
According to reports, the child’s ‘parents’ (19-year-old mother and boyfriend who is actually not the baby’s biological father) are suspected of having mistreated him to the point that he “may suffer various consequences in the future”, writes Correio da Manhã – one of these being “not being able to see again”.
The immediate concern is ‘shaken baby syndrome’ – a situation where the child has been shaken so hard that the brain hits the cranium and then swells. The fact that babies’ necks offer no resistance to being shaken, also means vertebra could have crushed the ‘spinal medula’, explains CM.
A report compiled after the child’s admission to hospital “indicate the boy’s injuries occurred at different periods of time. There are injuries from different moments in his short life”, says the paper.
For now, the parents are rejecting any kind of blame, indeed the mother has described her baby as “well and stable” in a post over social media – something that has not been borne out by Porto’s São João Hospital.
Thus the PJ investigation.
Says CM, inspectors are “trying to find out what kind of environment Santiago was being raised in”. They particularly want to find witnesses.
“Santiago was dirty when he entered hospital and had injuries to his feet. His parents showed symptoms of scabies”, the paper adds.
Tragically the baby’s mother is well-known to authorities: she is the daughter of one of two people charged with the murder and burial of her then teenage boyfriend in Chaves in 2015.
