Posted on 07/04/2007 4:19:23 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
(Unsafe sleep environments blamed)
The number of infants who died after being placed in an unsafe sleep environment has skyrocketed since December, Milwaukee health officials say.
Milwaukee Health Commissioner Bevan Baker called the trend "alarming" and a "crisis" that the city must address by rethinking how to tell people not to sleep in the bed with their babies and to always place them on their backs whenever they put them to sleep.
Baker says he understands that parenting is a tough job.
"Many of these families tell us that it was just a temporary lapse or that they just sat or laid the child down for a moment," he added. "But an unsafe sleep environment will affect any baby - no matter the race - and so the advice given to parents has to be continuously reinforced by the community and anyone who comes into contact with mom, dad and baby."
Each month the Pediatric Death Review team, which consists of about a dozen organizations throughout the city, meets to brainstorm over the cause of infant deaths and to identify prevention strategies. In some cases, final causes of deaths may be pending, said Milwaukee County Medical Examiner Jeffrey Jentzen.
During the June review, the Milwaukee Health Department says, the team noticed that there had been 18 deaths between December and May in which an unsafe sleeping environment may have been a contributing factor. Of the 18 cases, 16 infants were co-sleeping with an adult and / or a sibling at the time of death, they say.
Last year, there were nine deaths related to unsafe sleep environments during the same period.
Jentzen said the percentage of deaths in which co-sleeping is a factor has been steadily increasing and is now involved in about 80% of cases the team investigates. His office uses a doll to have families re-enact how the baby was found because it provides a concrete visualization of the scene, he said.
Despite efforts to decrease infant mortality in Milwaukee, babies born to African-American mothers continue to die at a greater rate than those born to white mothers. In January, the Fetal Infant Mortality Review Report found that the overall infant mortality rate for Milwaukee remained steady at 12 deaths per 1,000 live births from 2002-'04, but it found that the rate among blacks was significantly higher - 19.4 - in that period. About 81% of the citywide infant deaths were in 12 central-city ZIP codes.
The majority of the babies looked at during last month's team review were African-American and lived in three central city ZIP codes: 53206, 53212 and 53215.
The causes of death for these babies included entrapment and sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS.
SIDS refers to those deaths that remain unexplained after all known causes have been ruled out through autopsy, investigation and medical history. It claims the lives of about 2,500 infants each year, according to the American SIDS Institute. Over the past 10 years, Wisconsin has had more than 1,000 confirmed cases.
According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the national SIDS rate has fallen almost 50% since the launch of the "Back to Sleep" campaign in 1994, which urges parents to put their infants to sleep on their backs, rather than on their stomachs. Parents have also been told to remove all soft bedding from the crib and to make sure the baby sleeps alone.
"There are many reasons why (co-sleeping) happens," said Anne Harvieux, program administrator for the Infant Death Center of Wisconsin, based at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa.
For example, some people may not agree that the baby should be put to sleep alone, while others might not have the money to buy a crib, she said.
And there are many myths to overcome, said Kathy Elertson, pediatric nurse educator for Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare-St. Joseph.
"To many, SIDS is considered crib death and people think that it is the crib causing the death," she said. "And we still have parents that say 'I'll put him in the bed with me and then I'll hear if something happens.'"
I believe your explanation, a common sense thing which a lot of people just don’t get...is right on.
“I rolled on to the baby when I slept” is a catch all phrase that likely explains nothing.
It’s how I intuit all the brouhaha.
And intuitively, I simply do not believe that large amounts of babies from certain zip codes are dying because their mothers are rolling over on them.
Just a guess here but beat me up I’ll simply never believe this.
Wisdom, they say, is an abundance of common sense. Plenty on thread are expressing skepticism as well they should.
It makes no sense.
I don't think Fishtalk denigrated an entire class of people unless you consider substance abusers to a class of people.
I had a cat what had kittens in my bed too! What a hoot! I heard these little “mews” and looked over and there was my cat popping out yet another one!
Nine babies lived through sleeping with you, heh? Weird since they’re all dying in those specific zip codes for the same thing.
I think you’re right about that six month thing. At some point babies gleefully accept their own bed and as I recall, it was around 6 months of age. Before that I truly think a child really bonds with a mother by sleeping with her. Cats do it, dogs do it....all sorts of mammals do it because of the nursing thing. Humans are mammals. I simply, using common sense, do not believe that sleeping with a baby kills it.
Hey, science told me that having too many kids will over-populate the earth so I dutifully reproduced only one time and now I find out this “science” was bunk.
Now we have global warming.
I’m going with my good common sense here. I think folks in those suspect zip codes are taking their already dead and neglected babies and putting them into bed with them to claim this as cause of death. Creating, go with me here, more JUNK SCIENCE for the “scientists”!
Yeah, I believe this. Shoot me.
Actually, her statement was that no "real" mother would ever overlay her child, only drug abusers. In other words, any woman who has accidently smothered her child is a drug-abuser or child-abuser. Seems like a categorical denigration to me.
Thanks IA.
Of course I didn’t denigrate a “class of people”. Hey, I don’t even know what sorts of people live in those suspect zip codes. I don’t know their nationality, religion, color or idealogy. I only know that in those suspect zip codes babies are dying because, why? ...because they’re SLEEPING WITH THEIR MOTHERS?
I got a bridge to sell cheap. For there’s more going on in those zip codes than little babies sleeping innocently besides their loving mothers.
Real cheap...this bridge I got to sell.
Oh please.
Charles H. I make good points and I think I’m right.
You can interpret my words however you want.....plenty of people on this thread seem to understand them.
Hey, I got a bridge for sale, real cheap. You seem like just the right purchaser.
I am simply challenging the validity of the proof -- i.e. the deaths attributed to smothering may have had other medical causes which were unknown at the time, or were caused by intoxication. In other words, your premise is invalid because other factors have not been accounted for. That's not 'convoluted rationalization', that's pointing out the inherent weakness in your argument.
We don't start even, so to speak, because you have the burden of proof here.
Early Sunday morning, I turn over and feel something hot and wet next to my arm . . . it's Kitten Number One! So I got up and got Momma Cat a beach towel, and we proceeded with labor and delivery right there. I guess she wanted to be near us in her time.
Once she had them, though, she insisted in keeping them in a large wicker trash basket beside the bed, instead of in the nice queening box with heat lamp that I had all prepared for her. So I moved the receiving blankets and newspapers into the trash basket . . . . you just can't argue with a momma cat, at least it's not worth the trouble.
My wife and I have two sons. The oldest sometimes slept with us when he was a baby, and our one year old occasionaly makes it into bed with us as well. Methinks parenting has a lot to do with this problem up north.
Raising puppies IS a lot of hassle. A friend of mine just got a new little Boykin Spaniel pup yesterday -- she calls me at LEAST once a day asking for advice!!!!! Just got off the phone with her.
I would say the reasonable conclusion is that IF you are morbidly obese or an alcohol/drug abuser, it's probably not a good idea to put the baby in the bed with you.
There was a criminal case here a year or two ago involving a very large and very drunk woman who smothered her baby by rolling over on her while drunk. They charged her with manslaughter, and I believe her conviction was upheld on appeal.
I'm guessing most of these moms are single, with multiple children and receive little to no help from the father(s) of these kids. They are also probably young and uneducated.
At the end of the day they are physically and emotionally exhausted and when they go to sleep, they sleep harder and are less likely to be responsive to a baby in peril.
Just my $0.02.
Without info on the 18, it could be anything. Life styles, high risk babies, environment, who knows? It was interesting that cities were mentioned. Why isn’t this happening in rural areas also?
“unsafe sleeping environment”
For some reason, that phrase has a chilling effect on me.
Pity is the fuel for the wasted effort engines of compassion.
Our cat ended up having six kittens. The last one got stuck and needed our assistance. We thought he wasn’t going to make it, but he did. We put them in a big box in our room for a while. Then we put them in a playpen to keep the little ones OUT.
Did everyone end up getting all their cats fixed? Over 50 a day 365 days a year are put to sleep here in ONE COUNTY where I live. It’s becuase people don’t bother to spay/neuter and end up with litters that automatically guarantee that the cats in shelters waiting for homes don’t get one.
Well my incident with the cat and kittens was yay many moons ago when I was a young thing and my breasts didn’t sag.
I will say this, I have four cats now and they are ALL spayed and/or neutered. My dog is also spayed.
The cat what had kittens on my bed, she was indoor cat. Of course there waaaaasss that one time she got out and I found her standing on a drain pipe surrounded by a bevy of male cats all of them salivating and licking their lips.
Heh.
I THOUGHT I got to her before the male cats did but, alas, the kittens birthed in the bed proved me wrong.
Heh.
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