Fort Worth mother accused of faking baby’s illness for attention, warrant says
A Fort Worth woman was charged with injury to a child Thursday after detectives say she lied to doctors about her baby’s medical problems and caused him to have numerous, unnecessary procedures.
Sarah Melgar, 22, told doctors in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that her 7-month-old child could not eat for a variety of medical reasons and insisted to family members that her baby had heart defects, hearing problems and Down syndrome. Tarrant County Detective Michael Weber interviewed Melgar’s doctors, friends and family members, according to an arrest warrant, and determined her stories were fabricated.
Melgar’s case is the third this year in Tarrant County being investigated as a suspected case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy — also known as factitious disorder imposed on another. Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a mental health disorder in which a caretaker — usually a mother — fakes another person’s illness.
False medical history
A Child Protective Services’ case worker told Weber in March that she suspected a mother was faking her child’s symptoms at Cook Children’s Medical Center, according to the affidavit.
Melgar first told health professionals that her baby had health problems in October and November, the affidavit says. She brought the baby, then 1 month old, into the hospital and said he was not eating and would projectile vomit if a bottle was fed to him. She told the baby’s father in Facebook messages that the baby had two heart defects and a fever of 102.5, according to messages cited in the affidavit.
Once in October and twice in November, spinal taps were done on the baby to test him for sepsis, the affidavit says, because Melgar continued to insist her son was seriously ill.
Nurses at the hospital said while Melgar claimed her baby would not drink from a bottle, one of them was able to feed him a full bottle without problems, the affidavit says. One nurse noted that it seemed like Melgar would not keep the bottle completely in the baby’s mouth while feeding him and would pull the bottle out of his mouth every two to three swallows even when the baby was trying to drink from the bottle.
In March, Melgar told staff the child was dehydrated and wouldn’t eat. As is often the case with young children, medical staff relied on Melgar to give them an accurate medical history for the baby so they could treat him correctly. She told them he had a history of not eating, and a feeding tube was placed into the baby’s nose based on the medical history Melgar gave for the baby.
In a series of texts that are included in the arrest affidavit, Melgar told family members in March about her baby’s medical problems. She said he was on “the border of malnourishment,” had a five-day-long fever and low oxygen levels. She described days where the baby was “ice cold” and randomly lost consciousness.
A doctor at Cook Children’s Medical Center told Weber that many of these claims were not true, the affidavit said.
Medical staff started to become suspicious of Meglar’s stories about her baby’s health, Weber wrote in the affidavit. On March 25, medical staff moved Melgar and her baby to a room with a surveillance camera. Staff told Melgar to try and feed the baby with a bottle for 30 minutes to an hour. She told staff she tried to feed the baby multiple times for up to 30 minutes at a time.
However, video footage told a different story. According to the affidavit, the video showed Melgar gave the baby a bottle for seven minutes and he appeared to be eating. She then took the bottle away, refilled it with water and reported to nurses he would not take the bottle. From 9 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., Melgar offered the baby the bottle once for three minutes, the affidavit says.
On her Facebook, Melgar posted about her baby having a GJ tube — a feeding tube put into his stomach — and having Down syndrome. According to the affidavit, doctors at Cook Children’s said the baby never had a GJ tube, which is more invasive than a feeding tube through the nose, and he was never diagnosed with Down syndrome.
When Weber interviewed Melgar in March about her baby’s medical history, she told him that the baby had a variety of problems and “she was just trying to do what was best for her child.” During this interview, Weber confronted Melgar about the video surveillance that showed her refilling the baby’s bottle and not trying to feed him. Melgar denied lying about how much the baby was eating and said she never starved him.
Melgar’s baby was removed from her care in April and was placed with his great-grandparents. According to the affidavit, the baby is eating normally, did not have Down syndrome and had no medical problems.
In interviews with Weber, family members said they had suspected Melgar was making up her baby’s health problems “to draw attention,” the affidavit says. Family members would feed the baby without issue and saw inconsistencies in Melgar’s increasingly intense stories.
While the general public may think these cases are rare, data suggests they are more common than many realize, Dr. Marc Feldman, an expert in factitious disorders and clinical professor of psychiatry and adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Alabama, previously told the Star-Telegram.
Munchausen by proxy syndrome can also be difficult for medical staff and authorities to catch if they are not trained to recognize the signs, Feldman said. Due to the lack of understanding surrounding these cases — and a lack of criminal statutes — prosecution of a perpetrator can be difficult.
Melgar is charged with injury to a child due to the spinal taps that were done on the baby because, according to the affidavit, this test caused unnecessary pain to the baby because of Melgar’s fabrications.
This story was originally published August 9, 2021 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Fort Worth mother accused of faking baby’s illness for attention, warrant says."
