A mother has been arrested and charged with child abuse after the Department of Child Services found her six-year-old son weighing just 13 pounds.
Andrea Caldwell, from Memphis, Tennessee, was arrested on December 8 when an employee with the DCS conducted a routine visit to the boy and discovered he was severely underweight and neglected.
The 32-year-old has been charged with aggravated child abuse and neglect.
Her son was born with severe developmental disabilities that require a GI and feeding tube, according to WMC Action News 5. It’s not clear what the specific developmental disabilities are.
Andrea Caldwell, from Memphis, Tennessee, was arrested on December 8 when an employee with the DCS conducted a routine visit to her six-year-old son and discovered he weighed 13 pounds and neglected (pictured left in her mugshot and right in a Facebook photo)
The Department of Child Services have been searching for the boy since May 2017 and finally found him staying with his family in a Welcome Inn hotel, pictured. He had missed 13 doctors appointments, which were required because he was born with severe developmental disabilities
Authorities told the news channel that the DCS has been searching for the boy, whose name hasn’t been released, since May 2017.
They finally found him staying in Welcome Inn hotel on Summer Avenue near I-40 with his mother, younger brother and several other family members.
The DCS employee said the boy was severely malnourished and had bruises on his body, matted hair, bed sores and smelled of urine.The employee also said that his GI and feeding tubes were dirty, clogged and appeared to be broken
They have all been living there for the past few months.
The DCS employee said the boy was severely malnourished and had bruises on his body, matted hair, bed sores and smelled of urine.The employee also said that his GI and feeding tubes were dirty, clogged and appeared to be broken.
Caldwell told the employee that she was feeding her son with Similac baby formula, which authorities have said wasn’t enough food and didn’t meet his nutritional needs for his age.
They also said that Caldwell didn’t use the free nutritional materials that were provided to her by social services, but didn’t emphasize on why that may be.
Once the boy was brought to the hospital doctors realized he was only weighing 13 pounds – down from 40 pounds when he last visited in March 2017. The normal weight for a six-year-old boy is roughly 50 pounds.
The hospital and DCS records showed that Caldwell has missed nearly a year of medical appointments for the boy. Documents show she has cancelled or been a no-show at 13 appointments since April 2017.
But Caldwell’s family members say the charges of child abuse are ridiculous.
‘I just don’t understand why this is happening,’ her sister Angela Caldwell told WCA Action News 5.
‘She’s took very good care of him since he was born.’
Caldwell told the employee that she was feeding her son with Similac baby formula (STOCK IMAGE), which authorities have said wasn’t enough food and didn’t meet his nutritional needs for his age. After authorities found the boy they rushed him to the hospital, where they discovered he weighed 13 pounds. The normal weight for a six-year-old boy is roughly 50 pounds
Her family said that the charges against the mother are ‘harsh’, and said they took the child to Le Bonheur Children’s hospital (pictured), where doctors told them that the boy was healthy and nothing was wrong
The family said that doctors at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital told them the boy was healthy and nothing was wrong when they took him in because they noticed he’d started to lose weight.
‘We had him at La Bonheur in November saying he could not keep his food and stuff and they just told us to keep doing what we were doing,’ grandmother June Caldwell told the outlet.
They said that the allegations are ‘harsh,’ but did admit that she missed a few appointments after the family lost their car.
‘I know she’s missed a few, but I don’t think it was 13,’ Angela told the news station.
The family also said they didn’t know DCS has been searching for the boy since May.
DCS said it can often be difficult finding children if they aren’t in school or daycare, and that they found the boy last Friday and immediately called for an ambulance.