Breastfeeding meth mom sentenced to prison for baby’s nursing death

Maggie Jean Wortman, 27, gets jail time after pleading guilty to killing her baby through contaminated breastmilk. Mug shot via Humbolt County Police.

A mother has been charged in her 6-week-old infant’s death via contaminated breastmilk. The Humboldt County, Calif. mother, Maggie Jean Wortman, 27,  was accused of doing meth and then breastfeeding her son, Michael Acosta III, causing him to die of ‘methamphetamine toxicity’. She has been sentenced to 6 years for voluntary manslaughter, a charge in which she took on a plea bargain. The prosecution was planning to charge her with first degree murder.

Wortman’s lawyer argued the punishment didn’t fit the crime. He said that Wortman was in need of drug counseling and rehabilitation, not prison. Wortman claims she didn’t know that smoking meth would harm her baby through breastmilk. The judge disagreed saying that Wortman’s refusal to take responsibility for her son’s death means she doesn’t understand the nature or severity of her actions. Wortman continues to deny she had anything to do with her son’s death. She claims someone set her up by suffocating the baby and then laying the baby next to her.

Wortman’s older child, a 19-month-old toddler girl, also tested positive for meth and is currently in CPS custody. Wortman admits that she also smoked the illegal substance while pregnant.

According to ABC News, toxicologists profess that ‘breastmilk tends to concentrate the drug’.

Bruce Goldberger, Director of Toxicology, University of Florida told ABC:

“Some people think that using drugs and nursing won’t affect the child, but that’s not true at all. There have been hundreds of studies with pharmaceutical drugs that show that these substances are delivered to the child through breast milk.”