Criminal inquiry launched after six-year-old boy ‘kills newborn baby’ in France

[SerendipityJane]

Terrible story, raises some upsetting questions.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/crime/france-baby-killed-boy-hospital-lille-b2790118.html

When we’ve had disruptive sibling on my ward, There is little you can actually do apart from ask them to remove their child. But Its difficult to enforce if they won’t leave. As they have another child on the ward who needs to be there

When ds2 was in Nicu, only immediate family members under eighteen were allowed to visit.
This is tragic event for all involved. The person who dropped the child off, is the most guilty person here. The six year old should not be called a murder. The mom is unwell enough to be admitted and occupying a hospital bed herself.

Nicu is a special place for families. I don't think I will forget the many families I meet there. It solution is not to band children from visiting. It is should be about having strong boundaries in wards and not allow any unattended children in.

The person who brought the six year old should have taken them back. They have blood on their hands.

Who knows whst was wrong with this 6 year old child, he certainly siunds very neglected and may have all sorts of problems. But how on earth he could just wander into a Nicu and handle a baby without a single member of staff stopping him is the real issue here. Having had two babies in Nicu myself I cannot even imagine how this happened!

i read the article a few days ago and my immediate thought was it seemed to be the boy was at the hospital so his mum could look after him due to no other child care being available.

That poor Mum, and she was signing discharge papers at the time, so the baby must have been well enough that she had been allowed to take her home.

Beyond belief!

I agree not normal behaviour for a 6 year old, they would know to be gentle with baby animals and children smaller than them at 6.

He obviously had extremely challenging behaviour and should absolutely not have been allowed on the ward but we don’t know what sob story the parents told the staff about why they had no one to look after him, maybe children’s services were involved but the child was not ‘abandoned’ if he was with his mother in the day and picked up in the evening by his Dad, and foster care wouldn’t have been provided just for day time care. Maybe they were urgently trying to source child care? I doubt anyone could have foreseen him doing what he did although the hospital needs to answer for how he got into the NICU at all, let alone with no staff in there!

No one should be able to get in without having a security code, especially if the Unit is left unattended. Is that normal in a NICU or was this unusual and due to some other emergency that there were no staff in there?

Agree that the child’s parents need to be made accountable as well. Medical staff are not babysitters and the mother had been told. Investigation into parenting and psychological evaluation of the child should be a minimum.

I agree. The baby was alone, and access to the NICU wasn’t restricted or monitored? If a 6 year old boy could get in unnoticed, anyone could. That’s not my experience in the UK.

Oh I should really stop reading this. I was only discharged with my own newborn from neonatal this afternoon.

I can not imagine the nurses in 'my' unit allowing this.

What an absolutely awful tragedy.

My youngest is 4 and understand this. He likes babies a lot but he knows, like dogs, he isn’t allowed to touch them or hold them unless an adult says so. He has never, to this date, tried to do so.

The report talks about the six year old trying to touch another baby and calling this particular one his doll. Six is still very young, but there is a lot to unpack with this and a lot of questions that need asking, like how the hell he was able to gain access to a baby in the first place?

This is such an upsetting story. It is natural to want to find an individual who is at fault. I can’t get past the point of how much of a tragedy this is for both families and the hospital.

This is utterly devastating. The shock and grief the parents must be feeling. I can’t imagine.

The dad shouldn’t be dropping a 6 year old off to a mother recovering from a c section and with a newborn to care for; wtf was he thinking just leaving his son?

the boy is at fault as well though, he’d already been told to leave the baby alone and didn’t. He knew she was poorly, knew she was a tiny baby and even if it was a horrible accident which I’m sure it was, he still knew he shouldn’t have been touching her.

the hospital staff should have been better equipped to call out his behaviour. For whatever reason they didn’t intervene to say no to the dad, to speak to the mother or to contact social services etc: were they understaffed, not confident enough in their power or duty of care?

This story has just gone to my core.

the more I read the more I feel hopeless.

of course people want to look for blame, rightly so. Hopefully a review of health care for women and babies overall will come.

whilst the NHS is on its knees, I have never, ever, seen a situation where a child is allowed unsupervised on a maternity ward.

the person at fault here is the one who left that child unattended by dropping them off. Whoever that was.

my children are little, and careful, but goodness me wouldn’t be alone with a tiny tiny baby.

unless there is a video of it, it’s much more likely to be a wee soul trying to do good and bumping and dropping her. But that should never have been possible in the first place.

The mum and dad (if on the scene) of the 6yo boy and the hospital are equally to blame.

Treating a baby in this way is not 'normal' behaviour for a 6yo, but some children do have a fascination with babies and behave inappropriately around them. My friend's child (4, admittedly) kept trying to get into the bassinet with her newborn baby, which was a real worry for them. So I don't think the 6yo is to blame for the tragedy - his behaviour was worrying and 'naughty', if you like, but small children frequently behave in odd and inappropriate ways and it is for the adults around them to prevent them causing harm.

The mum may have been a patient herself but she must have realised early on that she couldn't control the boy and should have told the dad to get him the hell out of there. I would expect to have my DC in sight of me or another responsible adult at all times in a hospital and cannot fathom a situation where they would be left unsupervised. If it was the dad of the boy who insisted on dropping him at the hospital because he didn't want to take care of him or was using the hospitalised mum as childcare, then he bears a large part of the blame. Ultimately, the hospital should have put a stop to the situation a lot sooner. The boy should have been removed by security and an adult other than the mum called to remove him from hospital. If no one was willing to come, the police or social services should have been called. And there should have been better protection for the babies in the NICU.

This is just pure speculation but I can think of ways how he got in unsupervised.
I’ve given birth in a different French hospital. Everything was rolled around - babies in little wheeled cots, women in wheelchairs or beds and lunch was in insulated tray boxes as high as an adult. I can see how a 6yo might be obscured from view and sneak past a staff member rolling something through the door. Even if they checked that they are not followed they would probably expect an adult, not someone as short as a 6yo.

The staff should be able to restrict access to newborn babies! Why did they allow a 6yo there?
If the mum couldn’t look after him because she was a patient, he should have been removed nonetheless even if it meant calling social services.
What if a strange man was loitering near the babies, would they also have let him?

Yup, poor six year old too.

I don’t think the child murdered the baby as murder involves intent. The child should have been stopped by the staff and the parents told that it was not an appropriate environment for him to be in from the start.

This is a horrible tragedy and that child will learn what happened when he gets older and will have to live with it forever.

This is beyond appalling.

Jail for whichever parent was “in charge” of the 6yo.

Jail for the specific hospital staff who were told about the wild 6yo and did nothing.

Security review on baby unit.

How utterly disgraceful.

The hospital had a total duty of care towards that baby. A tiny baby necessarily separated from her mother in the care of hospital staff.

No one should have been able to get in. Not a child, not an interested fellow patient, not someone else’s visitor coughing germs all over her.

The mind boggles that anyone thinks it was the 6 yos fault because he had been told not to touch the baby on a previous intrusion to NICU! Staff telling a 6 yo not to do something really is not a credible mitigation of risk.

Actually the staff also had a Duty of Care for the 6 yo. They should have not allowed him to stay / found a safe secure place for him / called SS for emergency foster care. It is not all that unusual for mothers to be taken into hospital in an emergency and a temporary short term carer need to be found. What happened is terrible. But in a hospital environment the victim could easily been the 6 yo instead. Drugs, sharps bins, oxygen cylinders etc.

Do we know for sure it was the Dad who dropped him off? Could have been anyone known to the Mum.

Fucking hell, this is VILE. "Feral little git." You have NO idea about that child and his background. My son is able to understand if someone is poorly, but he is also Neuro-divergent, and as such would find it very difficult to control impulsive behaviour - such as running around, or trying to (in his eyes, gently) pick up a baby. I'm also pretty sure the boy didn't actually intend on dropping the baby!!
The situation is horrific, and can't even begin to imagine what life will now look like for that baby's family. But the person/people to blame here are the boy's parents. NOT the 6 year old kid.

So many people at fault here.

In a way it’s a comfort it took such a long chain of human failures for tragedy to strike: but given all the failures were simple idleness or not being bothered, ugh.

How utterly heartbreaking....the heart completely bleeds for the baby's family... So so sad ....

The parents of the 6 year old will be absolutely haunted by this:

What to even say or do to the 6 year old to understand the gravity of what he has done?

Facing their relatives, the baby's relatives, wider community, between themselves?...

Absolutely, awful and tragic situation.

Indeed, very soon they will likely have that 6yr old and their own newborn baby at home together 24-7 (assuming there isn't some kind of deeper issue uncovered by the investigation). Even though I would think the boy has by now had it very firmly drummed into him that he must not pick up babies, their anxiety will also be through the roof on an ongoing basis.

Then I'm sure you wouldn't allow your son to run around a hospital unit, knowing he has problems with impulsivity. If you did, knowing the issues, the blame would be on you. Agree it's the parents' fault here.

I remember when my mother had surgery and my father parked us outside the room. He took ages visiting her but we weren't allowed in to allow her to rest. We were a similar age. I'd never have grabbed a baby and didn't go into any rooms, but we ended up playing around the corridors, annoying other patients. Totally on my father.

I think the parents are at fault and the hospital needed to have intervened with this child earlier. Whoever had the ultimate responsibility for the child that day is mostly at fault though. What a horrible tragedy for the parents of that little baby. Also for that little boy who will carry this forever.