IL - Benjamin Sargent, 5 mos, dies of extreme neglect, Peoria, 12 Feb 2008

anybody ever put their baby to sleep in the carseat on the dryer?

my daughter loved that. it was boring to sit there while she slept though. i read alot of good books.

i don't have a good feeling about this. my only hope is the baby didn't suffer.

MistyM said:

anybody ever put their baby to sleep in the carseat on the dryer?

my daughter loved that. it was boring to sit there while she slept though. i read alot of good books.

i don't have a good feeling about this. my only hope is the baby didn't suffer.

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Yep with the vacumn cleaner running. BTW, the vacumn cleaner thing is dangerous. I burned a hole in the rug that way. Just letting it sit there running. Misty like you I was right there all the time, but I was not reading. Probably slapping myself from lack of sleep for days. Hoping the poor baby doll didn't suffer too, MM.

Wow i didn't know vacuums were that dangerous!

About the mom outside saying it was 'hot'. Do you think she may have had mental or drug issues?

MistyM said:

Wow i didn't know vacuums were that dangerous!

About the mom outside saying it was 'hot'. Do you think she may have had mental or drug issues?

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Yeah I didn't think a vacumn would burn a hole in the rug. Thanks to Imthemom for giving us that link with the comments. Weirder than the mom saying it was hot in herhouse and walking around without a coat is the dad walking around in a cape with one of them like Star Wars light sabres. I suppose anything could be going on MM that'd force her out of the house without a coat in the freezing cold. If that's even true.

I burnt the cord AND a hole in the rug when I was a pre-teen. Mom was NOT a happy camper that day. Here I thought she'd think I was vacumming if I just let it stand there in the "on" position. :doh:

It does sound like there's something not right mentally with the woman.

imthemom said:

Yes, I also thought it was odd that the coronary said "the baby was not well taken care of". Whey would he make a statement like that without evidence yet? I also thought, if I found my baby not breathing, I sure as heck would have taken it out of the car seat and been trying to revive him. But still waiting for autopsy, should be done this afternoon.

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Maybe that was just from seeing the baby. Perhaps diapers had not been changed for a long time, the baby was dirty, baby small for age, etc. Just guessing.

That baby would definitely have been out of the car seat if it were mine. I would have tried CPR until they had to pull me off the baby.

A poster on Crime and Punishment suggested that maybe the couple is mentally challenged or on drugs.

A neglected baby might have a very flat spot on one side of the head from laying in the same position all of the time, especially if he were sick or weak from insufficient feeding. It is an awful thought, but if they kept him strapped in the carseat all of the time I guess he could have bedsores too. Maybe his finger and toenails had not been trimmed or he had bad diaper rash.
I too, put my very young babies to sleep in their carseat when they were too congested to sleep comfortably laying flat. I stuffed pillows and blanket all around so it couldn't topple over.
Doctors used to tell moms to put something under the top of the crib mattress to elevate the baby's head when they had coughing or nasal congestion. They stopped advising that when they realized that babies could get caught beside the matress and suffocate when the matress was displaced.
If my baby wasn't breathing the first thing I would do is pick him up, turn him over, talk to him and pat his back, blow in his mouth etc.. No way you'd find him still in the carseat when the paramedics got there.

Susan

Inconclusive results so far:
http://www.week.com/news/local/15642192.html

One article said that the father was at the home, and the mother was found later...so I wonder if she gave the baby something (toxicology would show) and left the home?

MistyM said:

anybody ever put their baby to sleep in the carseat on the dryer?

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One of my children had colic and digestive issues. He slept in his car seat atop a vibrating heating pad (no heat on - just vibration) until he was seven months old. It was the only way he,my ex and I could get any sleep. Before a nurse at our pediatrician's office suggested the pad, we would take turns driving him around in the car seat all night long so he would sleep. I wish I thought of the dryer.

I'm waiting on the autopsy report before slamming the parents. There are just too many things that can cause an infant to fail to thrive besides neglect. These children often have rashes, odd odors and are extraordinarily small - and they are at risk to pass on without anything appearing to be wrong. The child's pediatrician may be able to shed some light on what the history is with this baby.

Someone also mentioned the possiblity that the child was born quite premature. If the baby was born early in the seventh month of pregnancy and is now 5 months old, it should be about the size of a 2 to 3 month old baby -- and 10 lbs isn't all that small for for those ages.

Taximom said:

Inconclusive results so far:
http://www.week.com/news/local/15642192.html

One article said that the father was at the home, and the mother was found later...so I wonder if she gave the baby something (toxicology would show) and left the home?

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Thanks for the update Taxi. It is looking better for the parents. I just wonder what they are saying happened.

My ex sister & bro inlaws son was very tiny as a baby. He'd eat like a pig
but stayed small. At 5 a Dr detected a heart murmer & figured that was the reason he was small for his age, but the Dr did nothing. At 18 he was arm wrestling & went to stand he fell over dead with a heart attack.This was there only child & they were crushed.

cheko1 said:

My ex sister & bro inlaws son was very tiny as a baby. He'd eat like a pig
but stayed small. At 5 a Dr detected a heart murmer & figured that was the reason he was small for his age, but the Dr did nothing. At 18 he was arm wrestling & went to stand he fell over dead with a heart attack.This was there only child & they were crushed.

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I am so sorry Cheko1-what a heartbreaker. I have a child with a genetic disorder that took years to be figured out-in the meantime, I went through nutritionists, specialists, you name it. The challenge is that once an infant is labeled with failure to thrive, the finger is pointed immediately at the parent and it is very difficult to get anyone to think outside the box. In this case, their child could very well have presented as an incredibly colicky kid, which is another reason for mom to be wandering-just to get a break. Imagine not being able to satisfy your infant's hunger...or ease their discomfort...yikes. I am sure that an underweight infant looked terrible to the responders....babies are so fragile to begin with.

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/021508/TRI_BFPNSRJB.013.php

PEORIA - Additional testing will have to be done to determine what caused the Tuesday death of a 5-month-old South Peoria infant that authorities deem suspicious.

But it was not only the baby's low weight that concerned authorities. There were other issues, which are not being released because of the ongoing investigation, that drew attention.

Oh! That poor thing has been through something. This is going to be a sad one. I bet the house was a mess. I wonder how long the mother was gone?

http://www.pjstar.com/php/index.php...infant_arrested_in_connection_with_his_death/

PEORIA — The parents of a 5-month-old infant found dead in his South Peoria home last week were arrested tonight on a charge of involuntary manslaughter.


There isn't much detail yet.

Heartbreaking...just heartbreaking!!!

The initial autopsy was inconclusive. I wonder if they now have a cause of death.

actually there is a current trend to get away from recommending the car seat. while MOST children tolerate the carseat well in short spurts, some do not (they crunch down in it, especially the preemies and newborns). Imagine if you were curled into a little tight ball with a tiny airway, it could be hard for you to breathe as well. Even though he was 5 months old, this baby was very small at 5 months old (at least what I read in the thread by scanning). This right off the top of my head looks like a failure to thrive and him being in the carseat in the crib could have been / was most likely the least of his problems. It probably wasn't being in the carseat that hurt him. It was probably malnurtition or some sort of illness (that caused him to be small or more vulnerable).

But what I wanted to comment on was the carseat stuff - because of some of the comments I saw earlier in the thread. I do know that during the time I spent in the NICU as a student, we had to make sure a baby could tolerate their carseat before they left by putting them in it and checking their pulse oximetry / o2 sats for a period of time before discharge. Even so, we recommended at that NICU that parents sat in the backseat with their babies if at all possible.

Currently the places I have rotated through are recommending the use of wedges to place the baby on the side or back between the sheet and mattress along with raising the head of the crib to assist with conditions such as GER and croup during sleep. This is what we do in the hospital as well - of course, follow whatever you and your doc decide together, but that is just what I have observed in my experience.

Honestly, for most normal 5 month olds, it won't matter if they sleep in their car seat in the end because most tolerate it well. Its just those tiny stragglers who don't tolerate it well during times of sickness or because they are small that worry people.

SewingDeb said:

Imthemom,

Those comments were interesting. Did you see the one saying the person who called 9-1-1 refused to perform CPR when the dispatcher wanted to walk them through it?

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that's messed up.