A Dallas, Texas woman has been arrested and charged with serious bodily injury to her own 8-year-old child. The mother was arrested after authorities began investigating her last month when she took her son to a Dallas hospital claiming he had a seizure. The medical staff could find no evidence that Christopher Bowen actually experienced a seizure.
Hospital records and doctor office visits showed that 34-year-old Kaylene Bowen-Wright took Christopher to hospitals and pediatric centers in the Houston and Dallas areas 323 times when he wasn't sick.
This started when the child was only 11 days old. The child underwent 13 major surgeries between 2009 and 2016 when they were not necessary, according to Child Protective Services. Bowen is being held in jail in Dallas County on a $150,000 bond following her arrest on December 6.
Texas Mom Allegedly Subjected Her Healthy Son, 8, to 323 Doctor Visits and 13 Surgeries https://t.co/1FHKypV2cK
— Breaking News (@breaking_news_4) December 16, 2017
Custody battle
Ryan Crawford, the boy's father says he has been in a three-year-custody battle for Christopher, but the mother claimed the child had serious medical conditions and was too sick to leave her care. Bowen-Wright claimed the child's lungs didn't get enough oxygen so he had trouble breathing and couldn't play like other children.
She also claimed Christopher had cancer. The boy was removed from the mother's care last month after a Dallas hospital alerted Child Protective Services that Christopher did not have cancer or any of the other diseases his mother claimed.
Munchausen by proxy
What the mother was doing is called Munchausen by proxy. That's when a caregiver imposes a sickness on another to gain attention, sympathy and sometimes finances for self.
Bowen was charged by the Dallas County Sheriff's Office for subjecting her young son to needless doctor visits and surgeries.
At the time of the mother's arrest, her son was on oxygen, was connected to a feeding tube, was on medication to control seizures and was in hospice care. Bowen-Wright was trying to get Christopher's name on a list for a lung transplant.
For most of the child's life, he was in a wheelchair. According to physicians, the child needed none of those things.
The mother was proactive in getting medical help for Christopher that he didn't need. More than $8,000 was raised when a bike rally was held for the child in 2014 because Bowen-Wright claimed he suffered from Arterio-Venous Malformation, also known as AVM. Christopher also had a GoFundMe campaign to cover the cost of some of the other made-up illnesses.
People might wonder how the mother had gotten away with it for so long. Initially, there were exaggerated symptoms. Then the mother moved from exaggerating symptoms to allegedly inducing the symptoms to make it look like the child was really sick.
The irony of Munchausen by proxy is that the caregiver is the one who is sick instead of the person being victimized.
The good news to this story is that since Christopher was removed from his mother’s care, he eats regularly without a feeding tube, has had no seizures, and needs no oxygen or an IV, according to officials.
