Maybe baby choked self, sez lawyer

The near-fatal suffocation of a 2-month-old Manhattan boy last year under the care of his nanny could have been accidental, a defense expert testified at the caretaker’s trial Monday.

Pediatrician Lorraine Ronca supported the argument put forth by Marianne Benjamin Williams’ defense that the wipe securely lodged in little Maxwell Blutreich’s windpipe on May 18, 2017, may have been inhaled by him or put there with the help of his 14-monthold sister.

“I believe that one of the ways (it could have happened) was from the baby-sitter shoving it down the baby’s throat, but I also believe it could have gotten there accidentally,” said Ronca, who examines tots in the emergency room and in abuse settings.

“It could have been inadvertently left near the baby’s mouth and sucked in,” she added on the witness stand in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Benjamin-Williams, 46, is charged with attempted murder and related counts for the terrifying event that left Maxwell blue-faced and barely able to breath.

He was saved by surgery at Bellevue Hospital after emergency responders found him bleeding from the mouth and gasping with no obvious sign of what was wrong — the wipe was stuck so far down his throat, it wasn’t visible.

Ronca said a possible explanation for the substantial bleeding in Maxwell’s mouth are the “finger sweep” attempts made by Benjamin-Williams and emergency responders.

The emergency efforts could be “why (the wipe) was where it was in the baby’s mouth... Anything that went in the baby’s mouth could potentially impact where that wipe ended up,” she added.

On cross-examination, prosecutor Nicole Blumberg grilled the physician on her stance and suggested the infant’s mouth was so small there was no room for a wipe to be “sucked” in because a baby’s tongue would block entry to a foreign object.

“Is it fair to say there’s very little space left for an object to be in that baby’s mouth?” Blumberg asked.

“There’s not a lot of space, I would agree,” the witness said.