Couple Charged After Infant OD's On Methadone
PITTSBURGH (KDKA/AP) - A Pittsburgh couple being treated for heroin addiction has been charged with endangering their infant son who overdosed on methadone, a drug used to treat addicts.
The 2-month-old boy wasn't breathing and had to be revived with Narcan, a drug used to revive overdose victims in October.
The child was taken to UPMC Children's Hospital after he was found in respiratory arrest in his parents' South Side Slopes home.
Police say 38-year-old Lorie Adkins told them she took methadone shortly before breastfeeding the boy, and believes she might have passed the drug to him that way. But Allegheny County child welfare workers say Adkins hadn't been breastfeeding the boy and doctors say it's unlikely the infant could have overdosed that way.
A doctor with the Child Advocacy Center said "It is atypical, unusual and unlikely that an infant would require Narcan if receiving methadone alone passively through breastfeeding." The doctor later said that the baby "was poisoned by methadone causing a near fatality and is the victim of child abuse/neglect."
The boy's father, 40-year-old Erik Eakin has also been charged because he and Adkins were the only ones home with the boy when he overdosed.
When Pittsburgh Police questioned Adkins and Eakin, both said they took methadone daily.
Eakin said he receives his at the Alliance Medical Services where he has to take the medication in front of a nurse. Adkins takes hers at a different location where she gets to take two pills home for the weekend. Both parents deny ever giving their infant the drug.
The baby's pediatrician told investigators that while Adkins initially tried to breastfeed while she was weaning off methadone, that it wasn't working and that the baby drank formula instead.
There are warrants out for both Eakin and Adkins. KDKA's Christine D'Antonio reached out to both of their attorneys on Wednesday and did not hear back.
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