A coroner has been unable to link illicit drugs to the death of a Canberra baby whose mother regularly used heroin and who was born with symptoms of withdrawal.
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Chief Coroner Lorraine Walker said there was no evidence the boy was exposed to heroin at any time likely to produce a fatal overdose.
She also found that "it is impossible to deduce what, if any, contribution [the boy's] exposure to heroin or methadone via his mother had to his death".
The baby boy died on June 25, 2018, at three months old, while he and his mother were living at Karinya House, supported accommodation for vulnerable women and their children.
About 5.30 that morning, the baby woke and his mother breastfed and bottlefed him before putting him back down in his bassinet.
She placed a blanket over him and a face washer underneath his head.
At 7am, his mother fell asleep on the lounge until a staff member checked in on her about 11am.
After the staff member left, the mother found her son unresponsive in his bassinet with his blanket covering his mouth and half his face.
Staff started CPR but when paramedics arrived the boy had already died.
His mother was a heroin user and her other children had been removed by child protective services.
During her pregnancy she was on a methadone program. When she discovered she was pregnant she was injecting heroin daily but told the inquest she had reduced the amount.
The baby was born with neonatal abstinence syndrome and suffering from withdrawal.
His mother used heroin within a week and a half of his birth and continued to use a few times a week, the inquest heard.
She told the inquest how she had lied about her drug use and tricked authorities by giving them false urine samples.
A pathologist who conducted the post-mortem was unable to determine a medical cause for the boy's death.
He said while the boy had all the appearances of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, his exposure to drugs and the death of a half-sibling meant it could not be categorised that way.
A doctor who gave evidence at the hearing said the current literature showed the benefits of methadone for both mother and baby outweighed any risks from the syndrome but that use of illicit drugs like heroin could cause problems "due to the fact that the exact composition of the drug is not known".
The Chief Coroner also discounted a sleeping accident as the cause of death, saying the evidence was that the boy had enough strength to move into a better position for breathing.
There were a number issues considered at the inquest including the baby's ingestion of heroin, concerns over the urinalysis monitoring by CYPS and a failure to detect the mother's ongoing heroin use, the positioning of the blanket on the boy in the bassinet and the appropriateness of the responses by the various services involved in the boy's care.
"However, in light of my findings that none of these factors can be causally linked to [the boy's] death I cannot find that a matter of public safety is found to arise in connection with this inquest," the Chief Coroner said.
"I decline to make any further comment or recommendations."
