Vernon Keenan has seen plenty of dead babies in his morgue, so to have seven in one day wasn’t all that unusual.
What was startling to Keenan, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, was the number of babies whose lives had been sucked out of them because a sleeping parent had rolled over on them.
“It was shocking, distressing and alarming because these are preventable deaths,” he said.
Compared to neighboring states, Georgia has some of the highest numbers of child deaths. More than 700 died in 2013, 500 of which were reviewed by the Child Fatality Review Panel. The total number attributed to unsafe sleeping conditions was 139.
Hard to believe, isn’t it?
Co-sleeping, or bed sharing, with an infant has long been a controversial practice among many parents and not even the experts can agree on the risks. What they all concede, however, is that if you are a heavy sleeper and use drugs or alcohol, sleeping with your infant is not a good idea.
A study published recently by the University of Bristol in England found that bed sharing by parents who smoke, drink alcohol, take recreational drugs or sleep on a sofa is associated with significantly increased risk of infant death, particularly infants less than 3 months old and who have a low birth weight.
If you think that should be obvious, consider those 139 death two years ago.
“That’s surprising,” said LaShaun Williams, a Woodstock mother of three and supporter of attachment parenting, viewed by some as the ideal way to raise secure, independent and empathetic children.
She and her husband slept with each of their three children when they were infants because it ensured they got a good night’s sleep and it made breastfeeding easier.
“It was perfectly fine for us,” she said.
The one drawback is they’re still trying to kick the youngest, now 4, out.
“She will start off in her bed, but by 2 a.m. I hear the feet and she’s in my bed,” Williams said.
Still, she acknowledges that what worked for her family may not work for all.
Since taking over responsibility of managing the Child Fatality Review Panel in July 2014, the GBI has increased focus on circumstances surrounding infant deaths.
Twenty years ago these deaths didn’t get much scrutiny, said Trebor Randle, special agent in charge of the review unit.
They were simply considered a tragedy.
“You didn’t want to question a parent as to the details of what happened, so in a lot of cases, they were classified as SIDS or crib death, but we owe it to the child to determine what really happened,” Randle said. “Now we’re training officers to ask the right questions.”
Was the caregiver under the influence of alcohol or drugs?
Had the child been ill recently?
What was the position of the child when they found them?
Sometimes infants become wedged between the wall and the mattress or get entangled with a toy blanket or clothing and is strangled. More often than not, Keenan said, the infant was sleeping with an adult who was under the influence of drugs or alcohol and rolled over and suffocated him.
The GBI’s efforts aren’t just about prosecuting neglectful parents. The bigger goal is to educate them so the deaths can be prevented in the first place.
In September, the GBI, along with the Department of Family and Children Services and the Department of Public Health, will launch an awareness campaign to educate parents and other caregivers about the dangers of unsafe sleep practices and develop a training video that will be distributed free to anyone interested in child safety, including, child advocacy groups, hospitals and police departments.
On Oct. 29, the GBI will host a statewide training session for law enforcement, prosecutors and coroners on how to properly investigate child deaths that are sleep related.
“We think with this awareness campaign, we can prevent the majority of sleep related deaths,” Randle said.
Let’s hope so.
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