Pubdate: Fri, 14 Jan 2000
Source: Australian, The (Australia)
Copyright: News Limited 2000
Contact:  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/
Author: Charles Miranda
Keyword: heroin

BABY VICTIM OF HEROIN

WRAPPED snugly in her colourfully striped baby blanket and with eyes
closed, seven-week-old Ashley hasn't a care in the world as she feeds on
her bottle.

But the woman holding the bottle and rocking her is not her mother but
police constable Tania Kay.

Ashley will never know her mother, who was yesterday found dead from a
suspected heroin overdose lying in the bed of her one-room Botany flat.
Ashley was found by police sleeping on a couch next to where her
32-year-old mother died several hours earlier.

Her father, a 35-year-old partially blind unemployed man, discovered his de
facto early yesterday but, too distraught to call police, instead drank a
bottle of whisky.

He finally made a garbled call for an ambulance at 7am. "My missus is dead,
I just lost my missus. I don't know what to do," he sobbed to police and
ambulance officers.

When asked by The Daily Telegraphabout Ashley, he bowed his head and said:
"She is okay, she will be okay".

Baby Ashley was immediately taken to Prince of Wales Hospital and, despite
her mother having been a long-time drug taker, she was found to be in
perfect health. Unlike so many other babies born to drug addicts, doctors
found the infant was not addicted.

Westmead Hospital obstetrician Dr Brian Trudinger, who works in the Drug
and Alcohol Clinic which caters specifically to drug-using mothers, said
the frequency of heroin-addicted mothers giving birth had risen
dramatically in recent years.

"We may have more than 10 people a month - you are talking about one-in-30
or one-in-40 mothers," he said.

Health professionals are required to contact the Department of Community
Services if they have concerns about the safety and well-being of a child
born to a heroin user.

Police initially treated the discovery of Ashley's mother as suspicious.
There were no needles or drugs by her side and it was clear she had not
died recently. But after speaking to her partner, it became evident what
had happened. She was a drug user - not a big user - but a user nonetheless.

While police were yesterday surprised there was no cot in the studio
apartment where Ashley was found - a renovated one-room office above a
warehouse on a largely abandoned industrial Daphne Lane - the baby had been
well cared for and the shelves were stocked with tinned food and formula.

"She was in very good health and is a very good baby," one of the first
detectives on the scene Sergeant Janne McMahon said.

"It was an accidental death. It is a very sad case particularly for the baby."

Sgt McMahon said despite 30 years in the police service, finding babies
next to overdose victims was never easy.

Ashley was last night in the care of a DOCS foster family. She will today
be reunited with her grandfather who is flying in from Adelaide.

Ashley will be taken back to Adelaide, where her 21/2-year-old sister had
been preparing for a trip to the US with their grandparents.

Her father, interviewed for several hours by Botany police yesterday, will
be counselled by police grief specialists.

A post mortem on his partner is expected today with a report to go to the
coroner.
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