A 28-year-old East Butler woman who gave birth while incarcerated pleaded guilty last month to nearly killing her 9-month old baby in August 2018.

Remedios Xochitl Nopaltecatl-Rimirez pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of children. Her plea agreement calls for an incarceration of 2 to 7 years.

Nopaltecatl-Rimirez has been in Butler County Prison since her arrest Nov. 28, 2018. She will be sentenced in March if Butler County Common Pleas Judge William Shaffer accepts the plea deal.

Police received a call around 5 p.m. Aug. 9, 2018, for an unresponsive child in an apartment on Grant Street. Upon arrival, they found Nopaltecatl-Rimirez with the baby and a 3-year-old.

After being flown to UPMC Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh, the baby underwent immediate surgery for a near-fatal brain injury, according to court documents.

Nopaltecatl-Rimirez told police that the baby took a nap around 2 p.m., and she later bottle-fed and put the infant on an air mattress in a bedroom. She told investigators she then left the bedroom for the kitchen and heard the baby fall.

But statements from medical personnel, documented by police, said this explanation doesn't account for the extreme damage done to the baby's head.

Hospital staff told police the baby was exposed to some kind of head impact trauma that is consistent with “repetitive acceleration-deceleration forces.” The trauma, known as shaken baby syndrome, was so severe that the baby's injuries will likely lead to permanent impairment, according to charging documents.

Video footage from an outing less than four hours before the 911 call show the baby was in good health, and “alert, upright and feeding,” according to police.

With this information, police issued an arrest warrant for Nopaltecatl-Rimirez. She was originally charged with a single felony count of aggravated assault, but Assistant District Attorney Patricia McLean, who prosecuted the case, added a second count of endangering the welfare of children on the day Nopaltecatl-Rimirez accepted the plea deal.

In exchange for pleading guilty to the added charge, McLean agreed to drop the original one. The ADA said that in pleading guilty to the added charge, Nopaltecatl-Rimirez was admitting responsibility for her baby's injuries.

In filings last summer, Nopaltecatl-Rimirez requested the court grant her visitation rights with her children. She notes in one filing that since her arrest, she has given birth to a third child. Shaffer denied the motion, telling her the issue is a matter between her lawyer and the Butler County Prison.