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A teen mom in Florida has finally confessed to purposely choking her baby girl twice to get attention from friends and family, especially on social media.
On Monday, prosecutors released footage of 19-year-old Brenna Winter admitting to police that she intentionally choked her infant daughter twice in June, despite previously denying the allegations.
According to Daily Mail, Winter, of St. Cloud, told police she dropped out of school when she was 18 to take care of her newborn, but the stress of supporting the baby became crushing.
Last June, Winter took the unnamed baby girl to Nemours Children's Hospital two days in a row, complaining that her daughter was vomiting blood for no reason.
On the second visit, the infant was admitted to the hospital and doctors discovered a small cut “of unknown origin” at the base of her esophagus.
An alarm was set off for hospital staff on June 6 when the baby stopped breathing after being left alone in the room with her mother.
Staff checked the livefeed camera in the baby’s room and were shocked to see Winter wrapping her hands around the small child’s neck.
Just a few hours later, a sitter stationed in the room witnessed the mother “breastfeeding” the baby and “holding [the girl] so tightly that [her] heart rate dropped]”—setting the alarm off again.
Throughout the horrific choking incidents, Winter continued posting statuses on Facebook about how scared she was over her daughter’s unknown medical issues.
After the first incident, she wrote that the baby “stopped breathing and was turning blue. I can't stop shaking. There [sic] helping her now. God that was scary. I almost lost my baby girl.”
After hospital staff started becoming suspicious of the mother, they called police, who immediately questioned Winter about what they saw on the livefeed camera.
“When they said they saw me in the video with my hands on her, I was trying to make sure she was breathing. I wasn't trying to stop her from breathing,” Winter told detectives with tears in her eyes.
Finally, the mom admitted to choking her daughter twice because she wanted attention. After getting so much attention the first time she went to the hospital, she decided to choke her baby once more.
“I was just really stressed out and I wasn't thinking, but I wasn't trying to hurt her,” Winter told police. “I was stressed out and I was trying to relieve the problem but I knew that wasn't gonna work...”
Winter has been held without bail in Orange County jail since June. She is facing several charges, including attempted first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and battery by strangulation.
