Tennessee Mom Charged With Killing Newborns on Suicide Watch

This undated booking photo provided by the Sumner County Sheriff's Office in Gallatin, Tenn. shows 25-year-old Lindsey Lowe. (AP/Sumner County Sheriff's Office)

HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn.-- A Middle Tennessee mother charged in the death of her newborn twins has been placed on suicide watch, and her lawyer says she has been given medication for her mental state while in jail.

Lindsey Lowe, 25, was arrested Wednesday and is being held without bond after police say she smothered her two sons minutes after giving birth to them at her family's home in Hendersonville, just north of Nashville.

WSMV-TV reports that authorities are concerned about her and have placed her on suicide watch while she is being held in jail in Sumner County.

Police have said that Lowe hid her pregnancy from her family and never visited a doctor.

According to a police affidavit, Lowe told police she held her hands over the babies' mouths until they died because she didn't want her parents to hear their cries and then hid them in a laundry basket. Her father called police after finding the body of one of the babies on Wednesday.

Police have not identified the babies' father.

Attorney John Pellegrin is representing 25-year-old Lowe. Pellegrin said Lowe had been depressed and had isolated herself from her family shortly before giving birth.

"I think she told her family that she was ill, and sort of confined herself to her room for a while," Pellegrin said. He said Lowe is being given medication for her mental state.

District Attorney General Ray Whitley said he will argue during a Monday bond hearing that Lowe should remain in jail and that there is potential for the death penalty in this case. She has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

"This case does carry the potential for the death penalty, but that's a decision that will be decided down the line," he said. "There are an awful lot of factors that enter into that decision, so it's not something we're concerned with at this point."

Police were unable to say how Lowe hid the fact that she was pregnant with twins from everyone who knew her.

"I think everyone wonders that," Pellegrin said. "She was a little heavy but not obese, and that's a question that family and friends were concerned about -- the weight gain that she had -- but no one apparently knew she was pregnant."

The bodies of the twins were taken to the state medical examiner's office, but autopsies have not been completed.