CHARLES CITY – A judge has ordered a Mason City woman to refrain from becoming impregnated during her probation after guilty pleas connected to her admission to shaking her infant son.
Stephanie Fatland, age 25 and now living in Mason City, pleaded guilty in May to child endangerment causing serious injury and child endangerment causing bodily injury. Fatland is the mother to an infant boy whom she is accused of shaking on three occasions in July of 2014.
At sentencing on July 27, Judge James Drew placed Fatland on probation for 5 years and suspended two 5-year prison sentences and two $750.00 fines.
However, he ruled that she is not allowed to get pregnant and is not allowed to be around children under the age of 5 years old without supervision.
According to court documents which show Flatland was stripped of her custody of the injured boy, after the child’s birth, he was in the intensive care unit until June 2014. After being in his mother’s care one month, the child was rushed to the emergency room where it was found the child had a bulging fontanelle and several retinal hemorrhages, which were believed to have been the result of physical trauma. There were also concerns that the child had gained very little weight while in the mother’s care. Court documents say Fatland initially gave no plausible explanation for the child’s head injuries, but she later admitted she had shook the child after “her anger and frustration rose to a level that she was unable to control her rage.” The child was ultimately placed in foster care.
