Mother charged with neglect

[Knackeredboot]

This article has been posted on Facebook and has attracted a lot of angry comments about it from people saying the mother should be steriliser and that she's evil.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c864g0evz9jo

The crime was neglect of a baby that resulted in its death from a mother that had failed to notice that her baby hadn't woken in the night for her usual feeds due to the mothers level of intoxication.

There's no indication that the baby would usually have to be woken for feeds, just that it was the babys usual routine.

The mother was awake but drunk. But had she been asleep then would that have been considered neglect too? She checked on the baby from a distance but did not try to stir. Again, I wouldn't go into my 5mo's room regularly in the night for a close up check on them as I would be asleep also.

It says that the level of intoxication was 2.5times the driving limit which is irrelevant as she wasnt driving.

Am i missing something here? I feel like the commenters are being incredibly hard on her based on the little detail in the article. Although I'm not a big drinker I know loads of couples that get smashed on the weekend while at home with the kids.

It says “Between 6am and 9am, Birks failed to recognise her daughter's deterioration in health.” So I don’t know if that suggests an ambulance was called at 9am? It doesn’t say who by.

There’s also no further mention of the older child. They’re young enough to need putting to bed, so not a teen. So where were they? Awake? Presumably not awake and being looked after, because if that was the case I’d assume the mother would have checked on the baby. So was the older child awake alone because the mother was out of it? Was it the older child who told the mother about the baby? I imagine this fed in to any charge of neglect.

Sorry but getting blind drunk in charge of a baby is neglectful.

I assume her alcohol level wasn’t checked till mid morning at least. It would have been significantly higher the night before when her baby was suffocating on the settee.

When I first read your post I thought 2.5 times the driving limit would be very little. But according to chat gpt this is 9 shots of vodka. I mean that is an awful lot and I wouldn’t think having that much alcohol is suitable for anyone looking after a small child never mind a baby that wakes up.

I don’t think anyone should be sterilised but she isn’t fit to look after a child right now as she must have an alcohol addiction. What a terribly sad situation.

The cause of death wasn’t SIDS, she slept on the sofa with the baby whilst she was drunk and the baby suffocated to death. This was also her third child so she should have been well aware of the risks.

I know what you're saying OP.

The actual actions of this mum - putting a baby under 6 months to sleep in a room alone, having a few drinks while responsible for a (sleeping) child, maybe letting your child sleep on the sofa if that's where they'd fallen asleep and you didn't want to wake them - are the sorts of things thousands of parents probably do week in week in and don't consider to be neglectful or cruel, even though there are also lots of parents who wouldn't do them. I've certainly had a few drinks while my baby slept.

It's a very sad case.

It's about being drunk, i.e. you willingly impair your judgement, without providing any other source of care or supervision for a very young baby.

Can't imagine being drunk whilst looking after a child, with no other adult watching them. Who does that!?

What news report says that the baby suffocated? The BBC one (which is pretty much word for word the CPS press release) doesn't say anything of the kind.

I have 3 children with additional needs. Two are just into adulthood and a teen. I still won't wear ear plugs at night because DH does, and I want to make sure that if anything happens, I'll awaken.

I don't drink, but I would imagine the sensible thing that most parents in couples would do is agree who is 'on duty' while the other has a drink. A solo parent would wait until they had childcare.

I really don't think drinking whilst you have care of young children is 'normal'.

I don’t know her but we have mutual friends. I’m not sure why the OP is assuming it’s SIDS when this isn’t mentioned, hence the charges against her.

So let's punish the mother and yet the father was absent? A misogynist judgment like so many others holding women to different standards than men.

I wouldn’t have checked before bed. It would have woken them. I just relied on my monitor.

Yes, you are missing something here, OP.

She planned and carried out an evening of drinking instead of planning and carrying out an evening of responsible parenting.

I read both of the articles that were shared here and I don't see where either of them said that the baby's cause of death was determined to be SIDS. Did I miss that?

How do you know it wasn't positional asphyxiation from being placed on the sofa? That would still be classed as neglect rather than manslaughter.

If the parents aren't in a relationship why would the father be responsible? As far as we know they had shared custody and it just wasn't his night to have the kids. The father not being present doesn't absolve the mother of the requirement to parent responsibly.

I highly doubt this was true SIDS. The baby has mostly likely suffocated due to being on a sofa. From what I’ve read, most of baby deaths are all just lumped under SIDS anyway no matter if they are following the safe sleeps guidelines.

This baby would very likely still be alive if it was placed in a cot in the same room as its mother

Well I certainly didn't have the baby sleeping in the same room for me for the first six months - in fact outside hospital I never had the baby sleeping in the same room. They had a room next to us. I mean presumably you are allowed to sleep some time before it's six months post partum. I guess the question is causation - did the baby not wake because the SIDs had already happened and any "neglect" by the mother while regrettable did not cause the cot death. I mean some SIDs are just unavoidable. My mother was a nanny and she discovered the baby had stopped breathing. My mother screamed for help and the two doctors, the father and the uncle of the child who were in the house, worked frantically to try to revive the baby and they couldn't.

The safe sleep guidance is that all sleep takes place in the same room as a parent for the first six months. The SIDS risk is increased when babies sleep on their own before six months. I’m not sure when you had your baby but guidance may have changed since

she absolutely neglected her baby
thinking only of herself

So it can never be the mothers fault ever? and any suggestion that she is in some way responsible is misogynistic?

But we’ve no idea where the father was, or what the situation was. If you had a situation where a father had done this during his night with the baby, would you want the mother blamed?
This was a 5 month old - would separated parents even be sharing overnight custody at that age? Or would it be deemed not in the baby’s best interest at such a young age.

I think it’s instinctive to jump to ‘it’s neglect’ right away because there’s been such a terrible, emotive outcome. But the true question is did she cause it? Would the baby have sadly passed from SIDs regardless? It does happen even when everything is done right. As a pp said thousands of parents drink and get into similar situations every weekend and while you may not agree with it morally, it would generally not meet the criteria for neglect providing that the kids in question came to no harm. Sadly that wasn’t the case here but I think the point of OPs post was to look at the way the mother is now being vilified because she was drinking when had it happened under other circumstances she’d have had lots of sympathy.

I suppose unless lots more information is presented then it’s impossible to say if her actions caused the death or if it would have happened anyway. Certainly safe sleeping wasn’t adhered to so if that played a part then obviously it’s on the mother.

There are videos on YouTube from the police catching drink drivers that show how far over the limit they are. Unless they're a hardened alcoholic being that far over the line is stumbling drunk.

Plus she wouldn't have been tested until the morning. If you drank enough at night to still be 2.5 times the limit the following day, you must have been absolutely wankered.

did the mother not go to bed herself?

The drink drive limit is tiny...you'd be over it after one moderate sized glass of wine. You'd only need 2 large glasses to be about there.