Coffee Suspected of Killing 3-Year Old
As reported in Visayan Daily Star and ABS-CBN News, a 3-year old girl from Phase 6-B, Handumanan died last May 8 and her medical files seem to point out that excess coffee consumption was the cause. The official record from the city’s Health Office listed the cause of death as cardiac arrhythmia secondary to caffeine toxicity. The family didn’t allow medical authorities to perform an autopsy so they can’t pinpoint which complication really caused her death.
Coffee Overdose
Jennifer Rose Barredo(Barrido in some), the child’s mother, woke to find the child dead last May 8. They brought the child to Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital but she was already declared “dead on arrival.” According to the mother, the child drinks milk but also indulges in the family’s leftover coffee during breakfast. She adds that the child had been doing this for over a year already and that they never willingly offered it to her. She also said that the child didn’t show any signs of being sick prior to the incident.
Barredo, in an interview with DYRL, also said that the child was brought to a doctor in Iloilo last December because her hands were beginning to shake. She added that they only moved to Bacolod early this May. Earlier checkups, she says, were also performed at CLMMRH but the child was diagnosed with asthma probably due to the coughing.
Barredo has two daughters and it’s the younger sibling who died. The body is now in their place in Handumanan. The family has set Saturday as the tentative schedule for the burial as they are still waiting for relatives to come.
Dr. Grace Tan of the Bacolod City Health office says that parents shouldn’t allow kids to drink coffee because their bodies might not be able to handle caffeine well given that it’s a stimulant.
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