Mom Accused Of Poisoning Son Hospitalized

(AP)  A mother accused in Pittsburgh of deliberately injecting her 4-month-old son with salt water will be sent to a state mental hospital because she suffers from severe depression.

Twenty-one-year-old Amber Brewington of Duck River, Tennessee, appeared today in court via videoconference for a competency hearing. Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey Manning ordered that Brewington be sent to Mayview State Hospital for no more than 90 days.

Psychiatrist Christine Martone testified that Brewington needs to be tested for Munchausen by Proxy syndrome, in which a caregiver fakes or induces illness in others to generate sympathy. Martone says Brewington also has a borderline personality disorder and admits to having suicidal thoughts

Last week, Brewington was charged with attempted homicide for trying to poison her 4-month-old son at a city hospital by injecting a saltwater solution into his feeding tube, police said.

Brewington told investigators she was trying to speed up the boy's death to end his suffering, according to a police affidavit.

The boy, Noah King, was in critical condition with sodium poisoning at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

Brewington told investigators that King was admitted to a hospital in Columbia, Tenn., in May and was later transferred to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, he suffered unexplained seizures and possible brain damage, police said.

While at the Nashville hospital, Brewington "gave her infant son four to five full syringes of high volume salt water in attempts to speed up his death," police wrote in an affidavit. "Amber felt that she did not wish to see her son suffer."

King was transferred to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh on July 9. Upon arrival, he had one of the highest recorded levels of sodium, even for an adult, according to the affidavit.