The five-year old boy with cerebellar palsy died on Tuesday in a Birmingham hospital after being placed in a medically induced coma, police said.
Police said the boy’s mother, Zoe, was at home in Birmingham when her husband called to say she was sick.
Zoe had not been in contact with her son for five years and he was placed in the hospital because he had not made a full recovery, police and the boy were quoted as saying by Birmingham’s Birmingham Post.
Police were not immediately releasing the child’s name.
The girl is in a stable condition.
She is being treated at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
The Birmingham Post reported that Zoe was a regular visitor to the family home, which has two bedrooms and three bathrooms, and had a daughter with cerebral dysplasia.
Zoe’s sister, Jasmine, said Zoe was “doing fine” at home.
Police arrested Zoe’s mother on Tuesday and charged her with neglect of a dependent and neglect of property after her son was placed into a medically-induced coma, Birmingham Police Chief Peter Thomas said in a statement.
The boy had no other history of mental illness, Thomas said.
Zoe was at school when her son went into the hospital and was put in the coma, according to the Post.
Zoe and her family are from the Birmingham area.
She worked at a local shoe store.
The Post said that the boy was transferred to the hospital after a “medical assessment” at the hospital.
The child was taken to a Birmingham-area hospital.
Police officers stand outside the Birmingham police department building after the death of a five-month-old child in Birmingham, Alabama, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2017.
Police say the boy, whose name was not released, was placed on a ventilator in the intensive care unit on Aug. 20, 2017 after he was found in a coma with cerebral contusions.
Police are investigating how the boy died.
