CALGARY — A Calgary woman who treated her son with dandelion tea and oil of oregano before he died says she delivered the boy herself with an unregistered midwife.
Tamara Lovett told court she took her son to a holistic clinic as a baby where he was examined by a chiropractor.
The 47-year-old testified she believed chiropractors have the same level of training as a doctor.
Lovett is charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life and with criminal negligence causing death.
Seven-year-old Ryan Alexander Lovett died in March 2013 after getting a strep infection that kept him bedridden for 10 days.
The trial has heard the boy was treated with holistic medicine rather than with life-saving antibiotics.
He died of massive organ failure.
Lovett told police officers that she thought Ryan was suffering from the cold or flu but he seemed to be getting better.
Just a couple of days before he died, he was complaining of pain in his leg, his eyes became jaundiced and he couldn't stand on his own, she said during a police interview.
She said she called 911 after he began convulsing and collapsed.
Alberta's acting chief medical examiner testified the boy’s body was full of group A streptococcus, which caused most of his major organs to deteriorate.
"Every organ in the body was starting to fail," Dr. Elizabeth Brooks-Lim testified last week.
"The major organs all showed signs of an infection of the blood … and, as a result of this infection, the organs that normally produce the immune response of the body appeared exhausted from having to counter an infection."
Ryan's birth was never registered and he didn't have an Alberta Health card. His mother said he was born with the assistance of a midwife and she had taken him to a naturopathic clinic for his medical needs.
Lovett's lawyer, Alain Hepner, has said he will call two or three days worth of evidence.
