Britney Spears cleared after baby son's fall

LOS ANGELES - Pop star Britney Spears and her husband were cleared of any wrongdoing by child welfare agents who visited their home in response to a hospital report of an injury to their infant son, her lawyer said today.

The statement from attorney Martin Singer did not give details about the mishap that led to Saturday's house call by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, or DCSF.

But according to published accounts by the Los Angeles Times and People magazine, the Saturday visit to Spears' home in the beachfront enclave of Malibu came after her 6-month-old son, Sean Preston, fell from a high chair and hit his head.

People magazine said the baby slipped from his nanny's arms and fell to the floor as she was lifting him from the high chair and "something snapped in the chair."

A doctor examined the child that day, April 1, at the family's home, and he seemed fine, the magazine said. But Spears and husband Kevin Federline became concerned and took the child to a hospital emergency room six days later to have him checked again, though no serious problems were found, it said.

"While there was an automatic report by the hospital to the Department of Children and Family Services, DCFS immediately responded and determined there was no problem and no reason to open a formal investigation," Singer's statement said. "They determined that the parents were not involved in any injury and that nothing improper was done within the home."

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has said its deputies accompanied DCSF agents to the Spears home on Saturday and that the matter was settled at the time of the visit.

In February, sheriff's deputies visited Spears' home at the request of child welfare authorities after Spears was photographed driving a car with her son seated on her lap behind the steering wheel.

Spears, 24, later issued a statement saying she had "made a mistake" by failing to strap her son into his car seat, as is required by California law, before pulling out of a parking lot. She said then that she was reacting to a "frightful" encounter with "physically aggressive" paparazzi, although the photo agency that took the pictures disputed her claims that photographers were hounding Spears.

Spears, who had kept a relatively low profile since marrying Federline in September 2004, recently returned to the spotlight with a guest appearance on the NBC television sitcom "Will & Grace."

- REUTERS/VNU