23-year-old Mother of 3 Jailed For Starving Newborn

Mother of the Year Walteria Bledsoe, 23, of Houston, was arrested and charged with injury to a child by omission after police said her 8-month-old baby was hospitalized weighing 7 pounds, 9 ounces. A child that age normally weighs 17 pounds. According to police, the child was taken to the hospital last November -- where he was diagnosed as being severely malnourished. He was also hypoglycemic (having low blood sugar).

Walteria Bledsoe was arraigned in state District Judge Marc Carter's court Monday after charges were filed last week. Bledsoe, a Houston mother of three, faces life in prison if convicted of the first-degree felony. She is free on $20,000 bail. In court, she said she had yet to hire an attorney. Varius Bledsoe was born premature, at 28 weeks, on Feb. 29, and spent 10 weeks in the hospital. He weighed more than 5 pounds when he was released. Baimbridge said Bledsoe took the boy to the hospital because he kept vomiting the evaporated milk, not baby formula, she was trying to feed him. When he was put in neonatal intensive care in November, he had hypoglycemia and he was unable to metabolize any food, Baimbridge said. He had renal failure, liver failure and heart failure, court records show. After the brief court hearing, the woman's sister, Tasha Bledsoe, said investigators are lying about the child's condition. "He's not bad, like they say," she said. "My sister is a good mother." She said her sister also has two other children, who were also born premature, and are now in the care of Child Protective Services. "It's not right, they're lying," Tasha Bledsoe said. "They put it in reports, but it's not true."

source: Houston Chronicle