Mom of babies found dead at daycare had left class abruptly, told employee it was allergies
The video above is from a previous report.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Not long before two newborn girls were found in a trash bag at a daycare facility in Streeterville, their mother told a daycare employee who asked if she was okay that it was just allergies, according to a police report.
Shortly before 7 p.m. on July 6, officers responded to the Bernice Lavin Early Childhood Education Center in the 400 block of East Ontario Street, where a janitor had found two newborn girls in a trash bag in a bathroom.
The twin girls were taken to Lurie Children's Hospital, where they died.
A Chicago police report obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed the girl's 29-year-old mother, who worked at the daycare center, abruptly left a class. When an employee asked if she was okay, the mother told her it was just allergies.
About 20 minutes later, that employee knocked on the bathroom door where the mother had gone and told her she needed to open the door or they would call security, according to the police report.
When the mother opened the door, the employee and a security guard noticed blood on the floor and called 911 for an ambulance.
After the mother was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for treatment, a cleaning supervisor assigned a janitor to clean up the blood in the bathroom, and the janitor discovered a black garbage bag in the cabinet. When he opened it, the janitor found two infants inside, both of them unresponsive.
The janitor notified their supervisor, and they called the police.
The daycare center is a facility used solely by Northwestern Medicine employees, but Northwestern has stressed that the woman who gave birth was not a Northwestern Medicine employee. She is employed by Bright Horizons Daycare. Northwestern also has said they are cooperating with police.
In a statement last week, the daycare center said one of their employees "experienced a medical emergency that resulted in the unanticipated delivery of newborn twin babies."
The girls were taken to Lurie Children's Hospital, where they died. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office has not yet determined a cause of death.