Wrong Side of the Bed: Why Prosecutors Should Be Pursuing Cases on Bedsharing Related Deaths.

• Author: Thompson, Todd G.

When police entered the bedroom, they could smell alcohol. They saw an empty Fireball Whiskey bottle, multiple empty vodka bottles as well as one with about an inch of alcohol remaining in it. Along with officers and EMS, the Sedgwick, Kansas fire department arrived on scene to check on a person not breathing. The first responders found a two-month-old infant, pale and without a pulse and immediately began life saving measures. When they asked the mother what happened, she saici the father must have rolled over on him. One EMS officer said, "you shouldn't sleep with your baby in the bed." This one story in a sea of similar stories across the nation.

Every year, 3,500 babies die in the United States due to sleep-related causes according to Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (1) Bedsharing is the most common cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (S1DS). especially in children younger than three months. (2) The CDC said that infant deaths in the last 20 years have quadrupled. (3) The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that babies sleep on their backs, have a firm surface to sleep on, no blankets or toys in the area, a cool and well-ventilated environment, and room-sharing without bed-sharing. (4) They recommend room-sharing without bed-sharing for at least six months but preferably a year (Some literature refer to co-sleeping and bed-sharing synonymously when in fact bed-sharing is a type of co-sleeping). (6) Other factors the AAP recommends to reduce death of a baby is to avoid exposure to smoke, alcohol, and illicit drugs. (6)

When officers went to talk to the baby's mother they noticed she could not smoke her cigarette without dropping it. She wobbled when she walked, and would hold on to the door so she would not fall. She was still intoxicated from the night before. In discussions with officers, she said that she and the father began drinking around noon. They left in an Uber to get McDonald's and vodka. When they came back, they continued drinking.The mother slept on the floor with one of the babies, and the father slept with the other baby cradled under his right armpit.

There is a growing trend for families to bed-share with their babies in the U.S.. (7) According to data through the AAP, since 1993, the practice of bed-sharing has grown from about six percent of parents to 24 percent m 2015.* Bristol Professor of Epidemiology and Statistics Peter Blair, who has been studying SIDS deaths for nearly 25 years, has said that a baby sleeping next to an intoxicated parent is 18 times more likely to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).' Infants have the same rate of potential death when placed on sofas, chairs and water beds due to potential suffocation. (13) Studies have shown smoking around infants can be another cause of SIDS generally due to respiratory issues."

When the mother woke, she found her baby snuggled against the right side of the father's chest. The baby wasn't breathing. She rolled the baby over and noticed blood. She woke the father up who responded, "Oh, sh@! 1 must've rolled over on him," and then. "They told us not to sleep with the baby."

Dr. Blair has said that certain bed-sharing deaths are quite lethal.i: All states have enacted laws that define state roles and responsibilities in protecting vulnerable children from abuse and neglect. For example, in my state of Kansas, child endangerment is defined as "willfully and unreasonably causing or permitting child under age of 18 years to be placed in situation in which its life, body or health may be injured or endangered."" Kansas' child endangerment statute was written broadly because it's designed to cover a broad range ot conduct and circumstances.The word "may" means more than just a chance, but a reasonable probability that harm would occur.The issue to...