To wonder how its possible for someone to forget about their baby [Warning: distressing news story]

[foreverondiet]

link

3 deaths in 2 weeks in a tiny country. How is it possible to forget about your baby. Btw I don't think any of these were people who just nipped into the shops and left their babies in the car on purpose. But struggling to understand how it's possible to happen by accident?

[ZipItShrimpy]

Amazing article but a difficult read.

I think that it's easy to say as parents that we wouldn't make that mistake but it's not that clear cut.

[doradoo]

So, so sad - and so terrifyingly easy to do. The info in the article from the memory specialist shows how the brain works to 'tick things off' and that with the alignment of a perfect storm of factors shows how it's not "forgetting" but something which we actually have less control over.

[JustinBsMum]

The 3 babies were all girls. Don't know if anything should be read into that.

[CFSKate]

There must be a technological way to reduce this.

[ArgumentativeAardvark]

Just read that article, absolutely harrowing. Those poor poor families.

[RoooneyMara]

I got about half way down the article, and it just kept going on and on and I have had to stop.

[BumbleBee2011]

I have a 3 week old DC2 and can see how you'd forget one child when the normal routine has altered and you're sleep-deprived.

I don't buy the argument about legal liability if the NASA device malfunctioned - this product is needed and should be made a legal requirement, in the same way child car seats/seat belts etc are. Anyway, surely the manufacturers would make enough profit to make up for any potential claims?

As far as marketing, I can't imagine anyone would still think "this wouldn't happen to me" after reading that article...

[RoooneyMara]

You know, there is something we can do. We can be super, super vigilant about babies in cars. Every time we pass a parked car we can look in it and make sure the child seats are empty.

We can try and get supermarkets and large workplaces to patrol their car parks in a similar manner.

We can campaign to get some kind of child alarm system put into place.

But mostly, for now, we can look, in every car we see parked and call the police if there is a child or baby (especially if crying, but even if asleep) inside.

I have seen a baby left in a car, in a hot supermarket car park and I did alert the shop or the police, I can't remember which. It's only likely to be for a few minutes, at most if forgotten an hour or two in a supermarket but still that would be long enough.

The police will be wasting their time in many cases but it might just save a child's life.

Someone kindly told me my baby was crying in the spring at Scats car park, when I had left the car, with ds2 (6) in charge, for five minutes to buy pet food...I knew ds3 would probably cry if he woke, and he did, but when she was peering into the car I was watching it too from the checkout and about to sprint back. We exchanged a smile and a brief acknowledgment that I was very grateful to her, and thanked her for being so vigilant.

If we all do what she did it would be a safer world for babies.

[Jinty64]

When ds's 1 and 2 were babies we didn't have airbags in the car and they always travelled in the front passenger seat while they were rear facing as did all my friends children. It would have been impossible to have forgotten them. With ds3 we had an airbag so he went in the back. I can see how much easier it would be to forget he was there.

[PrettyKitty1986]

Zingwidge - I've done similar. When getting my two dressed once I had ds1 (2) on my lap and was putting his socks on. Finished, plonked him on the floor in front of me to sit on the play mat.

Then picked up ds2 (who was about 6 weeks) to do the same...got the socks on him and did the same, leant forward and put him on the mat in a sitting position then sat back.

I realised a split second before he face-planted the floor but wasn't quite in time. Other than having a nasty shock he (and me!) was fine but it just shows what auto-pilot can do to you.

I'm sure there are plenty of people thinking 'what idiot could forget a 6 week old baby can't sit up'...but I suppose that's the point, you'd never think you could do something so thoughtless/stupid until you do.

[Wishfulmakeupping]

This had broke my heart just terrifying.
Agree with Rooney there must be something we could all do to try and stop this happening- I will keep a check out like you suggested.

I'm trying to think of something I could make part of my driving routine but my mind is blank tbh

[ThePowerof3]

How horrific, I have never done it but will be even more vigilant now. I couldn't live if that happened to me

[MrsLion]

I left dd2 in a shop once. It's something that's utterly incomprehensible until it happens to you.

I was meeting friends for lunch. On the way I popped into a  shop to pick up something I needed. Their tills all went down and they couldn't take card so I had to get cash from the machine outside. Dc2 was about 11 months and sitting in a pushchair.

I popped outside for the cash with her, pushed her back in the shop, joined the queue, paid for my item and after a brief chat to the sales person I inexplicably left the shop without her and made my way to the restaurant.

When I got there my friends asked me where she was and for honestly about 2-3 minutes I had no idea where she was.

It was one the most horrifying, shameful, disturbing and terrifying moments of my entire life. To this day I have no idea why I just forgot her. It was absolutely sickening. I am usually very organised, check-everything-twice type person.

Luckily she was right where I left her.

I had been through a very busy period: return to work after mat leave,  brand new job, moved house..  but I didn't feel sleep deprived or stressed.

It can happen to anyone. 

[RoooneyMara]

Also...I know this might sound like I am having a pop at those of us who have to use daycare.

BUT I have noticed a kind of inverse parallel thing (not sure what you call it) where the more you delegate, or share, the childcare responsibility, the more likely you are to be able to switch off the part of your brain that says 'you have a baby'.

So for example when I was younger and had ds1, my mother lived round the corner and she came over to help, a LOT. My mind was not fully geared up to take responsibility - so I would sometimes feel annoyed if she Couldn't come over, for some reason. Mostly I was with ds, but when I wasn't, I had to switch off the brain messages, the instincts, as in those moments, I was nOT holding a baby, someone else was in charge of him.

I'm not saying no one should have any help. But I know people who share parenting with a partner they no longer live with, and they are always behaving like they almost FEEL it's not their responsibility, because, you know, the boundaries aren't very clear and it could just as easily be the other parent's job.

But more simply, when your baby is at a nursery you aren't using the instincts that say 'you have a baby', that might be a good kind of buffer to stop this sort of thing happening, SO, it might follow that it is easier for people to forget their child is with them if they are USED to switching off the triggers, the alarm system in their heads, for extended periods every day.

I think a lot of people don't even want to send their child to nursery and go to work, especially when the baby is very little. Circumstances and our society make it very hard to resist the push to go to work though.

I am not sure what I am trying to say here, probably that we have got very good instincts and that we should make the most of them.

[differentnameforthis]

Plus still think this is something that car and car seat manufacturers need to be forced to address

In the article it stated that # NASA workers had come up with a device that alerted parents when they left the car that the baby was still in it. They did so after one co-worker experienced this. It goes on to say that no manufacturer had taken on the design.

The inventors could not find a commercial partner willing to manufacture it. One big problem was liability. If you made it, you could face enormous lawsuits if it malfunctioned and a child died. But another big problem was psychological: Marketing studies suggested it wouldn't sell well. The problem is this simple: People think this could never happen to them

[ThePowerof3]

The article shook me and I really felt for the dad, if you have murdered someone in cold blood then I imagine that hearing the details of your crime etc wouldn't phase you but having to hear how your little one died in pain because of an accident you unintentionally caused must be mind blowingly painful

[ThePowerof3]

That does make sense RooneyMara

[daimbardiva]

I can totally see how it's possible to do this in the rush of day to day life. I frequently find myself having to do a quick check over my shoulder on the way to work, just to make sure that I have actually dropped off my youngest child...and I know a family member has arrived at work and noticed his wee one still in the back of the car. Then my second was a baby I used to think all the time how easy it would be to rush out and leave her in her car seat in the house by mistake by the time I'd hustled my eldest, the dog etc. into the car.

So tragic, but totally possible...

[ZingWidge]

RooneyMara

I think I see what you mean.

when I have all the kids I'm aware what's going on as I'm in charge.

when DH is home too we each "wait" for the other to react or "expect the other" to deal with a situation.
so I'm not so jumpy as I'm only half aware, not "fully" responsible.

is that what you meant?

[differentnameforthis]

Anyway, surely the manufacturers would make enough profit to make up for any potential claims?

But the potential for it to fail must be great if no one will go ahead & take it on. Also, if it were YOUR company, would you just shrug infant deaths off as "potential claims?" Would would those infant deaths do to the company? Also, would YOU want your company, your employees and of course, yourself, to have the death of a child on your hands? Because I don't think anyone would.

What if parents became SO reliant on it & the batteries failed? It isn't really fail safe is it? No piece of equipment is when it comes to babies & I know I wouldn't buy it, not because I am of the attitude that it wouldn't happen to me (there for the grace of God - my children are older & would create if left in the car) but because I would be scared to put my trust in a machine. I know parents who can't even remember to turn the intercom on, how are they going to make sure this equipment is working?

What if there was a way to deactivate the unit & the parents did so, so they could leave baby in the car for "2 minutes" to pop in the shop? Or sleeping in the drive way? And they forgot to reactivate it?

Too much reliance on a machine, imo.

[RoooneyMara]

Yes Zing that is totally what I meant. Thankyou.

[ArbitraryUsername]

Yes. The article is very hard to read.

It says that there were plans to introduce safety systems in new cars to prevent this sort of thing but they were dropped because it wouldn't have gotten past the car manufacturers lobbying.

[babybythesea]

Have now read the article.

It's one of the most unsettling things I've ever read. It is not so much that I cannot imagine the pain and torture that you would go through, knowing you killed your own child (and worse, imagining the pain they might have been in), more that I just don't want to even go there.
You would never forgive yourself.

[BumbleBee2011]

But DNFT - these are deaths which would have happened regardless of the presence of this machinery, so not caused by it? If you forget to put your child's seatbelt on and have a crash, it's not the seatbelt that has caused the crash ITSWIM.

In the same way, I don't drive around more recklessly thinking "it's ok, I have seatbelts in the car" (FWIW I've read that people have been having more minor accidents since the advent of seatbelts, but nobody can deny that they have saved lives in potentially fatal crashes)

I think this technology would save many lives but probably (sadly) nobody would install it into their car to begin with unless they had to.

[ZingWidge]

Rooney

and that is when things go tits up or worse!

DS5 came close to drowning once while we were both watching him crawling into a shallow river!
I think we both thought the other one will jump, but for a good 20 seconds neither of us moved!

I should have jumped but all I could do is shout. DS5 was/is ok, but I still feel awful about it.
And I'm 1000% sure I wouldn't have hesitated if I had been on my own!

( in fact I did manage to react another time when he was chocking on a sweet and I did save his life - guess what, DH was upstairs, and out of sight!)

there's a beautiful Hymn with the words:
"Could a mother's tender care,
Cease towards the child she bear?
Yes, she may forgetful be...."

it always makes me cry...