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Aug 27, 5:52 PM EDT
Ark. police: Mom disconnected child's feeding tube

By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press Writer

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 LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A Texas woman was jailed without bond Thursday after police said she disconnected the feeding tube nourishing her 20-month-old son at an Arkansas hospital and poured the formula into his diaper.

A Little Rock District Court judge ordered Tonya Robinson, 27, of Wake Village, Texas, held without bond during a brief court appearance. Her son, Dakota Robinson, remains at Arkansas Children's Hospital and has begun to respond favorably to treatment there, said Little Rock police Lt. Terry Hastings.

Robinson was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Hastings said Robinson has said nothing to detectives about why she disconnected the feeding tube.

Dakota weighed only 18 pounds when he was admitted to Arkansas Children's Hospital, a police report shows. Medical staffers there became suspicious of his mother after Dakota started gaining weight, but suddenly began losing weight while hospitalized.

A police report said hospital staffers watched Robinson on Tuesday throw a blanket over Dakota and remove the feeding tube from his abdomen. Robinson then poured formula she should have fed into the boy's feeding tube into his diaper, the report alleged.

Tests done on the soiled diapers at the hospital confirmed the presence of undigested formula, the report claims. Police arrested Robinson on Wednesday.

"The hospital was the one that caught it and did almost all the work on it. They made a very good case against her," Hastings said. "That's what we would need in that case, a doctor or a nurse or somebody who is familiar with that."

Hospital spokesman Dan McFadden declined to say how long the child had been at the hospital. Typically, doctors diagnose babies with failure to thrive when their body weight falls dangerously below the average for their length. It can be a sign of parental neglect, though McFadden declined to discuss if doctors initially considered that.

McFadden said state child-welfare officials took Dakota into their custody after his mother's arrest. Child welfare spokeswoman Julie Munsell declined to comment on the boy's case, citing state privacy laws.