An 11-month-old baby died Tuesday after possibly ingesting medication used for high blood pressure and to delay child birth according to Warren County coroner officials.

Lt. Scott Reeve said Middletown police were alerted by Atrium Medical Center staff around 1 a.m. Tuesday that Gerald Passmore Jr. — less than two weeks away from his first birthday — was at the hospital after possibly ingesting pills at his home in the 600 block of Lafayette Avenue.

According to police reports, the child’s mother — Taylor Franklin, 19 —reportedly told officers she was outside her apartment smoking a cigarette while her son was in the kitchen.

Franklin said after she finished smoking and went back inside, her child was crawling toward her and a bottle of medication was spilled on the kitchen floor, according to police reports.

Police reports indicate the 10-milligram pills were possibly Nifedipine, a medication Taylor was prescribed to keep from going into early labor. The medication is also used for high blood pressure, according to Atrium Medical Center officials, and police said it had a screw-on cap instead of a child-proof cap.

Warren County Coroner Russell Uptegrove completed an autopsy Tuesday and said no trauma or injury to the body was found. The cause is likely an overdose, but a toxicology report won’t be available for six to eight weeks, he said.

Each year more than 60,000 children are taken to emergency rooms nationwide after getting into medicines and vitamins according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Between 2005 and 2009 in Ohio, 67 children died from poisoning, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Of those, 15 children were between 29 days of age and 4.

Reeve said police interviewed Franklin on Tuesday morning at the hospital, and said she was “very cooperative” and “forthcoming.” He described the hospital atmosphere as “an emotional situation.”

He said no charges have been filed and detectives will wait for the coroner’s report before filing any potential charges.

Reeve said detectives executed a search warrant of the apartment inside the Trailbridge Townhomes and found nothing suspicious.

Officers are unsure how the baby got the medication since Franklin said it was stored on top of a microwave oven that was on a low table.

The mother’s three remaining children — all boys, ages 3, 2 and 1 month — were taken to Atrium for precautionary treatment, police said.

The newborn baby was released to a family member and the toddlers were released after being moved to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for observation, Reeve said.

Jeff Centers, executive director of Butler County Children’s Services, said the three children are staying with relatives. He said there was one prior incident involving the family from March when there was concern for a child who had marks on his body after being returned by the father. The claim was found to be unsubstantiated, Centers said.

Neighbor and family friend Shameka Shavers said she went over to the apartment between 11:30 p.m. and midnight to visit with the newborn baby. That’s when she saw the baby with the pills and she stuck her fingers down his throat, trying to get him to vomit, and pumped his stomach.

Keisha Callahan, the child’s stepmother, said she and the baby’s mother drove the child to Atrium.

“I told her not to let him go to sleep; he was crying at the top of his lungs,” Callahan said.

Callahan said she advised the mother against giving the child a pacifier but that didn’t work.

“We’re almost there (to hospital) and she gave the baby a pacifier; he didn’t wake up,” she said. “I snatched him out of her hands and was running. He was so limp and I gave them the baby and they tried to save him.”

Callahan said Gerald would have celebrated his first birthday on July 7.