11-month-old squeezed into too-small swaddle dies at day care, OR officials say
A woman operating an unlicensed day care is heading to prison following the death of an 11-month-old, officials in Oregon said.
Teresa Louise Biswanath, 46, was sentenced to two years behind bars after a jury convicted her of criminally negligent homicide, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office said in a May 13 news release.
In an email to McClatchy News, Biswanath’s attorney, Rich Cohen, said an appeal is planned, and he added that “Ms. Biswanath has been deeply connected to the death of the infant in her care from the moment of crisis and loss to the current time. She had worked with the child’s family for four years and thinks always of their trauma and the loss connected to the death of their precious child.”
Biswanath was caring for the 11-month-old at the in-home day care on Aug. 30, 2022 when she “squeezed (him) into a swaddle much too small for his size, one designed for newborns less than three months old who could not roll over or crawl as he could,” prosecutors said.
She tried getting him to nap with the other kids she was watching then moved him to an upstairs bedroom, prosecutors said.
There, “she placed him face down on the bed with his arms constrained by the swaddle and the pacifier in his mouth,” according to prosecutors, who said the 11-month-old “was upstairs for at least one hour as (Biswanath) was in and out of the bedroom.”
At some point, after Biswanath checked on the other four children in her care, she found the boy “blue and unresponsive,” according to prosecutors. She tried CPR and her husband called for help, but the boy couldn’t be revived and died, prosecutors said.
Before running her own in-home day care without a license, Biswanath “worked at a well-known childcare center where she underwent extensive training, including safe sleeping techniques for infants. That training precluded the practice of infant swaddling, and (she) told police she followed that same policy at her business,” according to prosecutors.
Along with the prison time, Biswanath “is barred from ever operating a licensed childcare center,” and she must serve three years of supervised release, prosecutors said.
Washington County includes Hillsboro, about a 20-mile drive west from Portland.
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 11:32 AM with the headline "11-month-old squeezed into too-small swaddle dies at day care, OR officials say."
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