Infants and toddlers are newest victims of Canada's deadly fentanyl crisis

Edmonton Journal

29-07-2025

Article content
An infant was discovered 'fully unresponsive by mom' on a mattress on the floor where the two had been sleeping at a friend's house. White powder and syringes were scattered about.
Article content
A toddler fell asleep in a bed shared with two older siblings. During the night, a sister noted the toddler's 'stiffening and eyes rolling back.' A parent and two other adults in the house had used heroin the night before.
Article content
A caregiver woke from a nap with a baby and found the infant with 'cyanosis,' blue from lack of oxygen. There was vomit in the bed. Police found a bag of fentanyl outside the bedroom.
Article content
In Amelia's case, a scrap of tinfoil with drug residue was found in her car seat cupholder.
Article content
Her father had been arrested on drug charges days before her death. Her mother had stopped using and had stayed clean for several years after she became pregnant with Amelia, even contacting family services herself during her pregnancy for help to stay sober, but then relapsed into daily fentanyl use weeks before Amelia died. A family member had contacted local family and children's services, but both parents denied she was using again. 'Further attempts' to schedule visits became difficult when the mother failed to respond, court heard. Contact was eventually made, and a home visit scheduled for the day Amelia died, but her mother left a voice message at 5:50 a.m. that morning, cancelling the visit.
Article content
Article content
Both fentanyl and carfentanil were found in Amelia's blood.
Article content
The mother, who had been sexually abused by an uncle when she was a child, went into foster care at 12 and started using crack cocaine at 14, pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death. In December 2019, she was sentenced to four years less time served.
Article content
'No sentence will bring Amelia back, but the sentence imposed must reflect that a young life has been lost in these tragic circumstances,' Justice Melanie Sopinka said in delivering her decision.
Article content
Fentanyl alone, or in combination with other drugs, was the primary drug of toxicity in the Western study. In most cases, fentanyl was found in the child's play or sleeping area. A common narrative was that the child was found unresponsive after being put down for a nap.
Article content
Article content
'With opioid overdose, you don't die right away — I think they put the baby down, thinking it was going to be OK, they went to sleep and woke up, and everything wasn't OK.'
Article content
Historically, prescription meds caused most childhood opioid deaths, said the study's first author, Dr. Katrina Assen, a pediatrician at the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary. 'Now we're switching to fentanyl.'
Article content
Seven children in their study were white; three were Indigenous. The households were often small, cluttered, untidy and disorderly. There were often a lot of people living in them — five on average. The mean age of the children that died was just under two, an especially 'exploratory age,' the authors wrote. When kids transition from age two to four, they 'climb anywhere and eat everything,' Rieder said.
Article content
As a former foster parent, Rieder said he knows from his own experience that child protection services are under-resourced, over-stressed and facing a scarcity of foster families. 'I think because of resource constraints children are often in situations in which they might be potentially in harm's way,' he said.
Article content
Half the deaths his group found were classified as accidental; for the other half, the manner of death was deemed 'undetermined.'
Article content
'When you have an unexplained drug toxicity in a child, you just can't always say whether it got into them accidentally because of something somebody did or was there intentional provision of that substance to the child,' Huyer, Ontario's chief coroner, said.
Article content
'It's very difficult to answer those questions at times.'
Article content
Addiction is a horrible disease, Rieder said. 'It wires you badly. People in drug-using homes, in drug-using circumstances, make decisions that do not seem rational. They do it because the addiction drives them,' he said.
Article content
Article content
'In homes where there are drug users and kids, I think (child protection services) need to consider these facts when making decisions. … We have to make some decisions that are unpleasant.'
Article content
Should drug-associated material be found in a household, 'action by CWS (child welfare services) workers should be taken forthwith,' and at a minimum require education on safe drug storage 'and follow up visits to ensure that these steps are put into place,' Rieder and his co-authors wrote.
Article content
In a statement to National Post, the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies said if a report of neglect or abuse is received, the first step is assessment of safety concerns and to identify potential risks to children in the home.
Article content
'If concerns are identified, CAS's will work with the caregivers to create safety/mitigation plans and monitor these until the risk is reduced to a level (where) child protection intervention is no longer required,' the statement said.
Article content