Police have charged the mother of a 4-year-old girl who was hospitalized after being given too high a dose of prescribed medicine.

Lauren Cassandra Walck of Lansford faces charges of aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

In the criminal complaint, Lansford police said it was determined that clonidine was causing the girl to have “life-threatening seizures.”

Police said, “It was also well-documented that the victim had been hospitalized several times in the past after being given this listed medicine.”

According to court papers, the girl was treated at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia on May 7 and May 12 for seizures. When she was released, doctors told Walck to decrease the dosage from 1 mL to 0.05 mg.

Police said Walck told them that she ignored doctors’ orders to reduce her daughter’s dose of clonidine because the girl was not sleeping through the night.

According to Lansford Police, on June 3, 2019, Walck allegedly told a baby sitter by phone to give Walck’s daughter a 1 mL dose of clonidine, for which the girl had a prescription.

The baby sitter said the prescription bottle specified a 1 mL dose.

The next morning, the child was unable to be awakened.

Walck said when the child did finally get up, she was lethargic and went right back to sleep. The child was taken to St. Luke’s Miners Campus and transferred to Lehigh Valley Hospital.

The next morning, the girl was taken to a hospital, where she had a life-threatening seizure. She was then placed in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and intubated. Walck told doctors the child was only taking Topamax. However, a toxicology screen showed clonidine in the blood.

When the staff questioned Walck, she again denied giving her child clonidine but said it was possible the baby sitter did because an old prescription had been “laying about inside the house.”

Walck said, “It’s very hard to break old habits because they had given the child clonidine in the past.

She had previously been prescribed a 1 mL dose starting in November 2018.

In an interview one week after the girl’s seizure, Walck told police she was aware of the doctors’ orders to lower the dosage. Court papers say Walck said she continued giving her daughter 1 mL of clonidine against the doctor’s orders because the child was not sleeping throughout the night.

Felony charges include aggravated assault, neglect of care of dependent person and endangering welfare of children. Misdemeanor charges are simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.

Walck was released on $50,000 bail and is facing a preliminary hearing on Feb. 12.

Lansford Police Chief Jack Soberick said there may be more charges filed in the case. He said the child recovered from the seizure and is currently in protective custody.

This story has been updated. A previous version incorrectly compared the dosage prescribed by the doctor with the dosage the mother allegedly told the babysitter to give the girl.