A man was arrested after he allegedly walked into the neonatal ward and bottle-fed someone else’s baby, police said.
Man arrested for feeding someone else’s baby in hospital
Des Moines police said in a statement Monday that “during the late evening hours of Dec. 28, 2021, the person recorded on surveillance videos … snuck into a secure area of a local hospital, posed as the child’s father, and then bottle-fed the baby, before leaving. The child was not harmed.”
Adam Wedig, 36, was arrested and charged with two counts of trespassing after police determined he did not intend to harm the child.
Police added that Wedig “will be booked into the Polk County Jail on those charges, as well as an unrelated probation violation, shortly.”
Calling the incident “alarming and disturbing,” police said the “exact motive remains unclear.”
Prior to the arrest, when the story was first reported by KCCI, Sgt. Paul Parizek, of the Des Moines Police Department, mentioned that “the first question that comes to mind is ‘why.'”
“The family is obviously very frightened. This is something that would surprise any parent,” he added.
“This is definitely something new for all of us,” Sgt. Parizek observed. “When we think of child stealing or predators, this is not how they behave, or at least how we are familiar with their behavior. In this case, there was no harm to the child and, on the surface, there was no intent to commit any other crime beyond what he did to get in there.”
“I think there would be some caution to reasonably ensure that the person wishing to access the NICU is authorized,” medical malpractice attorney Thomas Slater commented to KCCI last month.
The hospital, MercyOne Medical Center, said in a statement that the incident is “extremely concerning.”
- Facebook Messenger