A Pennsylvania woman has been arrested after authorities discovered her teen son weighs only 26 pounds.
Elizabet Estrada of Chambersburg has been charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of children and one count of aggravated assault, WHTM reported.
According to court documents, the boy weighed 23 pounds when he was three years old and 26 pounds when he was 16.
Sixteen-year-old males in the fiftieth percentile for their age weigh 132 pounds.
Penn State Health alerted a local child services agency after Estrada brought the teen in for a doctor’s visit and physicians learned how severely underweight he was.
Franklin County Children and Youth Services contacted the Chambersburg Police Department, who arrested the mother.
Estrada told Det. Sgt. Jon Greenawalt that she homeschooled her four children and that the family has little contact with anyone outside the home.
“He was emaciated,” Greenawalt said.
Physicians told authorities that Estrada’s son was underweight because he was malnourished and diagnosed him with psychosocial dwarfism, which is caused by extreme deprivation or stress.
They found the boy had several other undiagnosed conditions, including a developmental delay and limited verbal expression.
Two of Estrada’s children are healthy adults, police said. The other two, including the sixteen-year-old, have been placed in foster care.
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Estrada is currently behind bars as she awaits a preliminary hearing scheduled for Tuesday.
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