Irresponsible and unhelpful article about baby’s death?

[NET145]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c864g0evz9jo.amp

I am genuinely very confused about this article and would appreciate if someone could shed light so we can learn from it.

It says that the mother “had failed to notice her daughter's deterioration” and this presumably led to the baby’s tragic death. But I have no idea what the signs of deterioration would have been? As a new mum maybe it is not as obvious to me as it might be for others.

There seems to be great emphasis on the alcohol and tobacco consumption, but nothing to say that this directly impacted - e.g. baby someone fallen on or got hold of cigarettes so it’s unclear why this is actually relevant? Clearly it is not a crime have booze and fags, so what exactly has happened here?

It seems like there is some fairly crucial information missing? AIBU to think this type of article is alarming enough to raise anxiety levels but too vague to actually help inform or equip parents and careers. And also stigmatises a mother who, other than drink and smoke, does not explicitly seem to have done something harmful. If she has missed some critical signs of declining health then we really need to know what they were!

I understood what you meant! You’re worried you wouldn’t notice the ‘signs of deterioration’ either even if sober because you might not know what to look for as it’s your first! I also worried about stuff like this with my first, now I’ve got 3 I reckon the things they’ll be talking about would be this (not medical just things I’ve noticed from my kids)

change in movement- sleep too ‘still’ not moving like normal
breathing differently - more shallow
change in temp - too warm/cold/clammy
odd sounds like an unnatural gurgling
sleeping too long without waking! You know what’s normal for your baby - if it changes dramatically it should alarm you (but you wouldn’t notice if you were smashed)
change in colour in face or extremities

a normal attentive parent would be picking them up, checking on them, looking at them especially at 5 months when they’re not supposed to sleep alone.

I don’t think they mention cause of death but it seems to be me from the way it’s written it wasn’t SIDS where nothing could have been done regardless of her behaviour. It implies there were signs that were missed because of appalling parent behaviour

If you genuinely want tips from this article this main takeaways are:

• don't get drunk around your baby (esp if you're the sole responsible adult)
• follow the safe sleep guidelines
• know your baby's sleep patterns and check in on them if they're sleeping more than usual
• smoking around children is not recommended

The reality is that this baby was likely chronically malnourished and dehydrated as well as maybe unwell. This meant that the 14 hours without fluids or nourishment was too much for their system to cope with. They likely developed a very low sugar level and that led to death.

What exactly happened isn’t your business though, is it?

There’s obviously a lot of missing info in the article so no, you’re not unreasonable in trying to establish more facts to this case.

Well I would suggest if you really can't criticise the behaviour of a person who, when in sole charge of two children, one of whom is a 5 month old baby, drinks to excess, smokes and leaves them to go to the shops, then you have no conception of right and wrong. Or of the needs , rights and safety of young children.

@NET145 I agree, but that's often the case with news in the UK, not specifically this article. Looks like it's about getting the news out there ASAP even if they don't have the full story. I often see useless articles full of gaps, leaving plenty of room for guesses and gossips.

The key learning point is don't drink, don't go out for a fag while you're looking after a baby.

You know, in my line of work, you come across many people who have quite dangerous ideas about babycare. Whether that might be around feeding, temperature, weaning or whatever. While some of the ideas might cluster in certain cultures, there isnt a culture or demographic who never have these dangerous ideas.

For instance, when it comes to temperature, lots of people who arent from Europe have the house dangerously warm. But then lots of people from Europe go the opposite way and their homes are kept a bit too cold for the baby. Especially with high ceilings and open plan layouts.

One thing that can be persistent is the idea that you never wake a sleeping baby. The number of times I have gone for a first newborn visit to a home where whispering parents greet me telling me "good" the baby is and how well it has slept "all night". Most of the time the baby just needs to be immediately woken for a good feed and a talk about how babies work, but there have been times where the parents had no idea that the baby was unwell and now needed an A+E visit. Partly due to the fact they hadn't fed it enough, or even tried to.

So really, I am not surprised at anyone asking this question about this baby. Ive known totally stable parents to leave younger babies for 12 hours without feeding and been mortified when a HCP has said they shouldn't.

Why is OP getting a hard time? MN is far too full of people piling in to give posters a kicking before thinking about the issue properly. OP is clearly an anxious new parent, and the way some of you are treating her is awful.

OP - I get where you're coming from. I suspect it was either SIDS or suffocation. The baby was left on a sofa, which can cause overheating or suffocate the baby if they wedge themselves between cushions, or fall off and bang their head.

SIDS rates dramatically reduce if the baby sleeps in their own cot (no bedsharing), in the same room as a competent adult.

This woman was paralytically drunk, so much so that the next day she was still 2.5 times over the drink drive limit (so she must have been many, many times over the previous night). She was also a smoker, which substantially increases SIDS rates even when people don't smoke indoors - the residue sticks to clothes, skin and hair.

This doesn't mean you can't go to the bathroom or nip down to grab a cup of tea whilst the baby is asleep, nor does it mean you can't have a couple of glasses of wine in an evening. Your baby will be fine in their cot if left for a few minutes. Please don't worry!

Baby was placed on a sofa, so quite possibly sudden infant death syndrome/cot death due to an unsafe sleeping position? Either baby has turned a bit to the side and got its face squished up against the back of the sofa and suffocated, or baby has been in a slightly crunched up position rather than being flat and its airway was occluded.

However in another article I read it said the pathologist could not establish cause of death, so it’s all very much conjecture. And that’s why the bbc article doesn’t have more information they just don’t know.

Healthy babies can and do die in 14/15 hours if left in an unsafe place and not checked on.

I agree with you.
And I don't think the OP is unreasonable to ask this question.

The article is based on the trial of the mother, not the outcome of the coroners verdict at the inquest following the baby’s post mortem.

In every single clinic you go to with a new baby there are posters advising about safe sleep with a baby ie back to sleep, avoid co sleeping, paticularly under the influence of alcohol. ,babies should be in a cot in a well ventilated room
Health visitors advise parents give out leaflets etc .

Yes, it feels a little unfair to call the article "irresponsible and unhelpful." The purpose of a news article is not to teach people life skills. It's to share news which this article did.

Some of us are a bit bewildered by op’s question as her op also details her confusion about what the mum did wrong by drinking and smoking, when the article makes it extremely clear what happened and why this was a problem, as if it’s not bleeding obvious that you shouldn’t get tanked off your arse when looking after a baby.

My advice to you as a new parent would be don’t get drunk when in charge of your baby, don’t smoke so you have second hand smoke on your clothes and in your hair, and check your baby regularly. That is all you need OP.

Unless you are in the habit of excessively drinking and smoking while caring for a very young baby, I don't think that a newspaper article is where you will learn how to mitigate the risk factors for preventable baby deaths. She's been charged with child cruelty, not manslaughter, because her treatment of her baby was cruel and neglecttful.

Your GP or Health Visitor should be able to provide you with information about how you reduce the risk of SIDS.

Yes, very unfair actually.
Also have to wonder…….did the mother smoke and drink to such excess during her pregnancy which would no doubt have harmed the unborn child anyway??

Have you tried googling the mother's name to see if there are other reports? I have, and they make clear that this five month old baby was left sleeping largely unattended on a sofa in a separate room to her mother for about 12 hours. That's not safe for a baby. I would imagine that they are not able to prove that being left on the sofa alone for hours as opposed to being placed safely in a cot caused the baby's death. But it seems like a very clear case of neglect to me, I'm afraid.

She put her to sleep on a sofa and left her for 14 hours. She probably suffocated, which is a strong risk when a small baby sleeps on a sofa.

https://www.lullabytrust.org.uk/baby-safety/infection-and-illness/baby-check-app/

I think this is probably what the police suspected (that the baby got into breathing difficulties because of being on the sofa) but couldn't prove.

Absolutely harrowing case. The mother and baby have both paid a terrible price here.

https://www.lullabytrust.org.uk/baby-safety/safer-sleep-information/safer-sleep-overview/