The mother of a five month old Christchurch baby, on life support, said she was devastated and angry and still had no answers about what had happened.

Police are investigating after a baby was taken to hospital from a Barbadoes Street address on Monday with “serious unexplained injuries.”

The mother, speaking publicly for the first time through Chris Lynch Media, said she had done everything asked of her under an Oranga Tamariki safety plan and was now trying to understand how her son ended up in intensive care.

“The only thing I blame myself for is going away for the weekend and leaving my boy with my mum when I thought I could trust her,” she said.

“I just want to get to the bottom of it.”

A family friend told chrislynchmedia.com the baby had been on life support for three days.

They said doctors told them there was a 20 percent chance the baby would not survive, and that if he regains consciousness, he will suffer permanent brain damage.

The family friend said they were told the injuries may have been deliberately inflicted and said a doctor told them the injuries were comparable to those seen in a high speed crash.

“Medical evidence doesn’t lie.”

The baby, who cannot be named, has a subdural brain bleed and what were described as marks beneath his arms and shoulders.

The mother, who has an intellectual disability, said her son had been thriving in the days leading up to the incident.

“He’s been the same old, giggling, smiling, happy,” she said.

“If there was any sign of drowsiness, sleepiness, anything, I would have picked up on it.”

She said an Oranga Tamariki social worker had visited about a week before the incident and observed the baby was well.

“She even said that he was fine. He was giggling at her and everything, smiling, like he was happy.”

The mother said she had changed her son on Saturday morning and prepared a bottle for him before taking him downstairs and asking her own mother to watch him while she got ready upstairs.

She said she came back down, placed the baby in his car seat and was taken to the bus stop.

“Everything was fine.”

The mother caught a bus to the West Coast at 8.45am on Saturday, leaving the baby with family members at the Barbadoes Street address under the safety plan.

She then got a call on Sunday telling her the baby was having seizures.

“They put it down to a subdural haemorrhage on the brain, which is predominantly caused by trauma,” she said.

The family friend, who has known the baby’s mother for around 20 years and acts as her advocate, said the tragedy was entirely preventable.

Under the Oranga Tamariki safety plan, the mother said the baby was to be cared for by her own mother or one of two other family members if she went away.

The family friend said that “despite the safety plan being in place, no checks were carried out on the caregivers and no home visits were conducted to ensure the environment was safe.”

“I said to the social workers, why was the child placed there if there were no safety checks done, no coordination, no home visits? And now he could die,” they said. “She couldn’t answer.”

Chris Lynch Media has seen a report which outlines serious and ongoing concerns about the baby’s welfare and environment.

The mother said she had been left wondering whether the safety plan had even been followed by those entrusted with her son.

She raised concerns that other people in the home, who were not authorised to care for him under the plan, may have been left looking after him at points over the weekend.

“My question is, where was my baby? Who was looking after him?” she said.

She said she had been unable to reach her own mother since the incident, and her mother had not asked about the baby’s condition.

“She hasn’t even given me a hi. She hasn’t even talked to me or anything. And it’s making me wonder, are you covering for someone?”

The family friend said they confronted the Oranga Tamariki social worker assigned to the case directly and said the boy had been let down.

“She smirked at me. I just about told her to leave my house. I said, I absolutely feel sick. This is not the first time Oranga Tamariki has been in the headlines.”

They also questioned why Oranga Tamariki had not applied for a Section 91 order to place the baby formally in state care from birth, given the mother’s intellectual disability and the fact her older child, who lives in the North Island, is already subject to such an order.

“They said, ‘Oh, it just wasn’t necessary.’”

“This is life or death. To me it was like she was just checking her phone the whole time.”

Three people were in the house at the Barbadoes Street property over the weekend in question, the family friend said.

Police executed a search warrant at the property, which remained under police guard for a period before being returned to the occupants.

The family friend said the mother had begun sharing information with police.

Among the details she disclosed was that one of the people at the property had, on previous occasions, held and squeezed the baby’s nose when the child became upset, and that she had felt increasingly uncomfortable in that person’s presence.

They also described a phone call made from the address around the time of the incident.

“The context of that conversation was, ‘you tell her to be quiet.’ Something has happened. Something has happened.”

“He’s only been on this earth for five months and he’s already in a coma. I feel so angry and I feel frustrated.”

She said she had barely left her son’s hospital bedside, leaving only briefly to shower.

“I’m staying positive, because when everything ends up being okay, he’s going to need me the most.”

The family friend said they had since obtained copies of the safety plans from lawyers and intended to make a formal complaint about how Oranga Tamariki handled the case.

As of Wednesday morning, the baby remained on life support, breathing partially on his own.

“It could have been avoided in so many ways, so many angles,” the family friend said. “It’s just terrible.”

The same friend said it was important to help the community better understand how the system had failed both the mother and the baby.

Chris Lynch Media approached police for comment asking if the baby was still on life support. A police spokeswoman said, “I can confirm there’s been no change in status.”

Oranga Tamariki National South Commissioner Arihia Bennett said Oranga Tamariki was notified after a child was taken to hospital with serious unexplained injuries in Christchurch.

“Given police are currently making enquiries, we are unable to provide further information while this is ongoing.”