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Baby girl died after being left in car seat for 15 hours by parents

80 replies

greendale17 · 31/08/2018 09:40

This case pretty shocking. Baby girl died after being left in a car seat in a hotel room alone with 2 other children under 2 whilst their parents were drinking in the bar.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2018/08/30/baby-girl-died-after-being-left-in-car-seat-for-15-hours-by-drunk-parents-7897196/amp/

I was shocked to read the following points-

-The seven children the mum has given birth to since June 2015, only four have survived longer than 16 months
-Both the mum and the dad, a violent offender released from a 30-month jail stint for robbery just before the relationship started, were known to social services.
-Both parents have known alcohol issues
-Domestic violence was suspected
-Hospital called the Police when the mother turned up to her 20 week scan drunk

How can they be allowed to still keep their remaining children? Why were they not prosecuted?

Reported in the news today although it happened in 2016.

NEWS
Baby girl died after being left in car seat for 15 hours by parents

I am astounded by the fact that these people were allowed to keep their children

OP posts:
TwoBlueShoes · 01/09/2018 11:23

I agree, it sounded like the mum was trying, but was obviously struggling after her twins died.

They don't know the cause of death of the baby.

I can't really understand how people can be so judgmental about a family they don't know based on a few tabloid headlines. And that article was really shocking.

glintandglide · 01/09/2018 11:23

“The child was vulnerable due to low weight but mum didn't know how to manage that.”

I found this quite interesting - as she wasn’t able to breastfeed both twins, she chose to breast feed child M and formula feed the surviving twin. I wonder how much support she had with this and whether it was a wise idea at all. It looks like she ended up supplementing child M with formula but none the less, it seems like child M wasn’t feeding much in the lead up to their death.

GiveMeAllTheGin8 · 01/09/2018 11:25

Shouldn't be allowed to have kids.
Leaving babies alone while they drink at the bar? Even if they were in cots that is completely unacceptable.
Bullshit about the cots not fitting. If your baby doesn't have a proper safe sleeping space then don't stay there or don't drink and co sleep.
They should not be allowed produce any more babies, poor innocent baby dying alone. How long was that baby dead before they even realised?

colditz · 01/09/2018 11:29

My life would have gone to absolute shit if I had been put under the same pressure this woman was under. There is no way on God's green earth I could have cared for twins, they probably WOULD have died "under my care" because if you actually read between the lines, those babies were very, very ill!

But it's all shudda cudda wudda. The truth is, until you are put into a situation you don't KNOW how you would handle it. Can we all here hold our hands up and say that if social services came and told us our own level of perceived-by-us-to-be-normal parenting was inadequate, we'd trot along nicely to the adoption office and hand over our newborns?

Inadequate parents still do actually have normal levels of love for their children. They're just not coping with the demands and my GOD were the demands high in the family.

ReanimatedSGB · 01/09/2018 11:31

It sounds like a woman in a very difficult situation, trying to do her best. I would not be at all surprised to find a genetic component in the deaths of the babies, though - repeated twin pregnancies with health issues sometimes points to that sort of issue (and maybe the wider-family disapproval could have had something to do with the parents being a bit too closely related?)

tillytoodles1 · 01/09/2018 11:33

Maybe it's not as straight forward as it first appears, but why did she carry on having more children when she had so many other problems?

glintandglide · 01/09/2018 11:50

She didn’t really “carry on” having children. There seems to have been little issue with the first 3. Then she had twins, and the problems started. Then she fell pregnant again with twins. On the face of it it seems like the only children you could argue she shouldn’t have had were the last set of twins. She’s hardly been knocking out baby after baby and she couldn’t really prevent having multiples.

@colditz I couldn’t agree more. I like a drink, and I think under these circumstances I might well turn to it as well. That’s painful to admit, but I suspect a great number of people would too in reality.

Luckily, thanks to my lucky life (good upbringing, education, career, own home, good partner) I’m very unlikley to be in the same position as this mother. There but the grace of god and all that.

Failingat40 · 01/09/2018 11:50

Wow am I reading the same article as those saying poor woman, trying her best, Ill kids etc????

This was an adult woman choosing to stay in an abusive relationship with a criminal and continued to reproduce children while drinking alcohol throughout her pregnancies.

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a likely cause of the children's 'complex needs' and in no planet ever is leaving all those infants unsupervised for any period of time 'trying her best' Hmm

IQ tests should be done on people before they reproduce.
Sensible parents know about positional asphyxia and the risks of extended periods in car seats! I can't believe this happened in the UK.

Seriously sad story but I'm afraid I only have sympathy with the poor remaining victims of this couples fecklessness.

glintandglide · 01/09/2018 11:54

Failingat40 maybe you shouldn’t take everything you read in trashy papers at face value. And no, FAS didn’t have anything to do with the deaths, there was no evidence that they had FAS, and in fact seems to be no evidence that she was a heavy enough drinker for that to be a concern. The alcohol related concerns point to a handful of occasions in which she had contact with professionals and appeared to be either drunk or hungover.

So no, you’re not reading the same as everyone else. God knows what you’re reading to be honest

TheCrowFromBelow · 01/09/2018 11:57

IQ tests should be done on people before they reproduce

Sorry, have I woken up in Germany circa 1940?!
You do know that clever people make shut parents as well?

TwoBlueShoes · 01/09/2018 12:01

I also didn't see that there was evidence of her being in an abusive relationship either.

glintandglide · 01/09/2018 12:09

“IQ tests should be done on people before they reproduce”

Ironically people who say things like this always seem quite likely to fail the IQ test themselves

JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff · 01/09/2018 12:20

colditz may I just say that that was one of the most sensible, temperate posts I have seen in 8 years on MN.

LittleBookofCalm · 01/09/2018 12:34

so they were drinking in the hotel bar and went back every 30 minutes to check, as proved by CCTV.
how many other people do such? this is 21st Century. Not the slapdash 1970s
god I wouldnt
drink in the bedroom if you want, With your children

LittleBookofCalm · 01/09/2018 12:39

God, who would want to work in Child Protection, these kind of stories, day in day out, not always with such deaths but the possibility of deaths must be always on your mind.

picklemepopcorn · 01/09/2018 13:15

Thanks for that summary, glint'nglide. Poor, poor woman. Once you have lost a child, you are often powerfully driven to have another. I wonder how her older children are coping with the trauma.

onetimeposter · 01/09/2018 13:22

Goodness coping with my last (unplanned) single pregnancy was hard enough. To get twins, lose one, then find out it's another set of twins again must have been incredibly traumatic.
I feel sorry for her.

LittleBookofCalm · 01/09/2018 13:30

she lost her best friend, also all around the same time. terrible

LittleBookofCalm · 01/09/2018 13:31

the twins were only 10 weeks old, so young.

thereareflowersinmygarden · 01/09/2018 13:36

Why are people feeling sorry for her?

She refused help, got shit faced and failed to use contraceptives or have an abortion.

It's grotesque.

glintandglide · 01/09/2018 13:37

When did she refuse help? Confused

LittleBookofCalm · 01/09/2018 13:37

some of us are reading the serious case review as well as the posts. not the Metro link on its own

toothtruth · 01/09/2018 13:42

yes I feel very sorry for her... More support should have been given. Two sets of very sick twins and then losses of her children would send even the most intelligent and skilled mums over the edge... her life must be a living nightmare.

cakeday · 01/09/2018 13:44

I've read the serious case review. Sounds like they were warned about the danger of sleeping in car seats, especially with the added risk factors of low weight and prematurity. And the baby hadn't been feeding well?

I think they took risks most of us would not take, and they were for selfish reasons. However I do feel for the Mum as it sounds like she's been through hell and I could've predicted that she would've been brought up in care. It's really sad.

thereareflowersinmygarden · 01/09/2018 13:44

At the point where she turned up for the twenty week scan, shit faced I think.

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