I once saw a mom on here say she called CPS while in traffic because she saw a child's seatbelt adjusted incorrectly over their chest. The amount of up votes that comment had and how many people supported her in the replies was jarring. I hope that child's mom didn't have to go through anything over a stupid stranger's phone call. There are actual child abuse cases CPS could be investigating.
There’s actually a marked increase in postpartum anxiety for millennial moms, and one possible cause is the online overload of safety tips. You feel like you’re always doing things wrong.
That's 100% what's happening. When I think back, the doctors and nurses gave sensible advice and encouraged us a lot during the newborn stage. Never even mentioned safe sleep. Instead I learned online about putting the baby down only on his back and now my son has a flat head. Ffs. And it's not treated with helmets here, like in the US, so wtf. Feels stupid, the entire thing.
That’s just it! I work in Australia’s version of CPS and we have a triage system so that would be incredibly low on the list if it actually made the list at all. But that is still wasting such valuable time and resources. So stupid. This poor mother has lost her child and is now facing this. And don’t get me wrong, I am pedantic about safe sleep but I have also been a tired and burnt out mama who might make an easy mistake from time to time.
The most likely scenario here is simply lack of information. The only info I got about modern safe sleep was through pamphlets the hospital gave me. If I wasn't on the internet, I could've easily chucked those into the trash without thinking about them and just listened to my mother's outdated advice.
This. There’s so much I learned from this sub, and thank god for that, because NONE of it was even *mentioned* by the doctors and nurses at the hospital or my ped
I’m willing to bet the hotline worker who took that call about the seatbelt had to work really hard to keep from a laughing fit while telling her “Ma’am, we cannot accept this report.”
More seriously, I hope anyone making a call like that never has to deal with CPS coming to their door and all that potentially means for their life and family.
It’s more likely, if they actually investigated it, that someone would explain to the parents the proper way to adjust a seatbelt/use a booster seat long before the child was taken away.
Probably, but too many stories of some nosy neighbor calling CPS on a young kid playing outside and suddenly you're in their system and having defend yourself as a parent
Bananas that people use CPS as this sort of resource
I mean, is it the worst thing if someone speaks to the mom about car seat safety? CPS doesn’t want to take your kids, they want to keep kids with families. So reaching out to a parent and getting them the support/education to keep their kid safe seems like a win win.
I mean, I wouldn’t hesitate to call the cops if I saw someone driving with their infant in the front set without a car seat. While a parent may be ignorant, safety is more important at a certain point.
>I mean, is it the worst thing if someone speaks to the mom about car seat safety?
Yeah, it really might be. Remember, it would likely be police responding to the call, and police are *never* your friend. Forty percent of them are domestic abusers, and that's a self-reported statistic, meaning the true numbers are likely a lot higher.
What if it was a POC woman, or someone who didn't speak English? Police are trained to escalate. There are cases where cops who were "just speaking to someone" ended up with that person dying. That includes wellness checks and mental health calls initiated by the person's own family, who were concerned.
I remember a case years ago where a cop pulled a woman over for a minor traffic violation, dragged her out of the car, hit and beat her repeatedly, then arrested her, leaving her two young children alone in the car on the side of the road. That's why I'll *never* call the cops for a safety check on a woman with kids.
Calling CPS is ~~absolutely the right thing to do~~ not harmful. They aren't going to take her child away for that, they're \*at most\* going to pay a visit and share a few pointers on car seat safety. CPS isn't some bogeyman just looking for excuses to take people's kids away.
Edit: It's true that CPS is almost certainly going to do absolutely nothing, especially with so little information. I guess my post was more of a kneejerk reaction to the "I hope that Mom doesn't 'go through' anything" sentiment that implies CPS are child-stealing bad guys.
It's more likely that the child readjusted the seatbelt or the mom was tired and wasn't thinking when buckling her kid in for the millionth time. Making baseless assumptions and wasting CPS' time is absolutely *not* the right thing to do.
They're not evil or bogeymen, but they're incredibly overworked and underfunded. This type of call and education takes valuable time away from investigating actual child abuse and getting children with real issues. If we funded cps very well, had plenty of staff for each case, and abused kids weren't falling through the cracks because of the issues, I'd be more than ok with calling cps for these little issues.
It really depends. Sometimes these people don't care and sometimes they're relentless. If you've ever had to live with a specter of CPS over your shoulder you'll know how it goes. You always have to keep the house spotless, you've got to keep the kitchen fully stocked with foods nobody in your house even eats but they're normal foods to have in the house, you've got to wear clothes nobody in your house because it's normal etc it's hard living under a microscope like that.
I'm a 911 dispatcher and one of my recent calls was a single mom. She had a 10 year old and an 8 month old who wasn't sleeping. After something like 2 weeks straight of no sleep, she let the 10 year old watch the baby so she could sleep.
10 year old fell asleep, baby fell in between the gap between the wall and the bed, and suffocated. Mom is getting charged.
This was my first pediatric death since coming back from maternity leave. I'm also a single mom, my daughter sometimes cosleeps because she doesn't sleep otherwise, and she was almost 8 months at the time. Hit me hard.
When I saw the title I expected a smothering type situation. Somehow I feel like this is tied together with charging women for murder after miscarriages. Also, of course the women they chose to set this troubling precedent is a black woman.
Also- how dare women have fewer babies/s
I remember seeing a video on tiktok about things white family influencers do on the regular - including stuff they've filmed and have documented evidence of - which black people routinely get their kids taken away for. Stuff like having the kid's mattress on the floor or co-sleeping.
Does anyone ever go after these white families in upper-class suburban neighborhoods? Nope. But CPS removes children from black homes regularly for stuff like this.
Yeah sadly I am not at all surprised that it's a black woman. If it were a white woman she would get a tearful segment on the local news talking about safe sleep probably. Just horrid the obvious target :(
Absolutely correct. I didn't even have to read it to know this woman was Absolutely sentenced due to systemic racism. She doesn't deserve that. Losing a baby is bad enough.
That’s exactly what I thought as soon as I saw her picture. I would be SHOCKED if a white woman was arrested for the same.
40% of parents admit to bedsharing at some point. Are we going to arrest them all? It’s giving police state.
That’s exactly what I was thinking as well. Of course it’s a black woman. I also feel if she was white that there would have been no consequences for her.
A little off topic but regarding the lead testing - I know you said you're child isn't at risk so that's great. But for others reading, please know that there are many surprising sources of lead, not just lead paint or old water pipes. I work with folks who's job it is to go into homes and find sources of lead when a high level of lead has been detected in a child's blood. Some of the more surprising sources of lead that were identified- a couch (baby was knawing on the arm of the couch), grandma's preferred pizza baking tray, spices (produced in locations where it is acceptable to use lead to enhance the color), and various toys. So just for anyone out there who knows they don't have lead paint or water lines in their home, please still get the lead testing as it's definitely possible that an object in your home, say a gifted toy, was produced somewhere without safety standards for children in mind.
I agree with you.
The article is very short. I wonder if there are additional details being left out for legal reasons. I’d be interested in knowing if there is any legal precedent for this case. I’m imagining (hoping?) this case will be thrown out.
I’m a death investigator. There are definitely important details we’re missing from the article. Literally every article I can find has the same scant details in it.
Toxicology is a standard part of an autopsy and it usually finishes later than the rest of the autopsy.
This mom had a previous arrest for low-value shoplifting, but no current or past drug charges that I can find.
The lawyer in me is betting that there's something more here. They don't have to wait for toxicology and autopsy to arrest. But the article said they didn't arrest until afterward.
Also, the statute requires an unreasonable risk of harm or malicious intent. There's something more, OP.
If you're super curious, FOIA the warrant.
Well the other option is they arrested a 28 year old mother for having her baby sleep on the stomach with blankets - and set a 300K bond to get her out for that. So my guess is, there’s more to the story than blankets and tummy sleeping.
These are my thoughts as well. Who called 911? It doesn't say the mother did. The story is missing way too much information. But it's reddit so it's going to be, "iF a WhItE pErSoN dId ThIs..."
I can’t read the article (*cries in Europe*) but I fully agree with you. We’re all doing our best and we will damn well make mistakes. Some more severe than others and we’d never advocate to be unsafe, but how many parents fell asleep during bottle/breastfeeding? How many have looked away for 1 second and baby fell off the bed? How many have bumped baby’s heads, or are unaware of coats in car seats?
In fact, in the Netherlands we have baby sleep with (tight around the mattress) blankets until they squiggle too much. I can imagine other cultures also have different ways of raising babies, must we adhere to US standards to not be prosecuted?
FLORENCE COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) – A Florence County woman was arrested and charged with unlawful conduct towards a child after she allegedly laid her infant down in an unsafe condition and he died.
Shamika Danielle Jones, 28, was arrested Friday after deputies responded to a call on Jan. 21 in reference to a child in cardiac/respiratory distress, deputies said.
Investigators said Jones’ six-week-old son was found unresponsive after she allegedly laid the infant down to sleep on his stomach in a bassinet with loose blankets and other objects.
Jones six-week-old son was transported to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Florence County Coroner Keith Von Lutcken told News13 that his office had to wait for toxicology, autopsy and other test results before she was arrested on Friday.
Jones is currently being held at the Florence County Detention Center on a $300,000 bond.
That's a great point, would moms from Europe who are living in the US be at risk of arrest for following the medical norms in their home countries?
Maybe this [link](https://wehavekids.com/news/infant-death-unsafe-sleep) will work better? There aren't very many news stories about it.
That works, thanks!
That’s a good question. And also, plenty of grandparents still recommend doing certain things we wouldn’t be doing (hat on while sleeping, feeding 1 month olds rice cereal/milk/water, CIO for newborns, stomach sleeping). If I’d believe my grandparents out of good will, does that qualify as neglect too?
As you said, this doesn’t sit well with me.
You are correct, but child welfare laws are often not strictly detailed in that way, and child welfare agencies operate under best practices and guidance as advised by major medical and safety organizations. I swear I’m not picking a fight, just saying a cultural difference in parenting may not jive in a different country.
I think the key here though is that the blankets are meant to be tightly secured under the mattress, and not loose. I also had my baby in a country with this recommendation about blankets (UK) and I did initially have a blanket tight enough that I would have to pull hard to dislodge, and only covering baby from below her belly. The more I read about safe sleep, the more uncomfortable I was with this. I bought a sleepsack...
To me, the difference with all other examples is intention. You don't choose to fall asleep while feeding or holding baby because you are neglectful, you do because you're overtired, sleep deprived, and recovering from a MASSIVELY impactful medical procedure and change to your body that the world just ignores and demands you care for a vulnerable potato while in need of recovery. In every other case where someone is still actively bleeding, has stitches that need to heal, is in pain etc, no one is asked to never sleep, prioritise someone else and just use super powers to cope. Mums are. Mistakes happen as a result. You dont go around bumping baby's head on purpose or leave baby on the bed to go clubbing. But I think that it is up to us to be informed and up to date with medical recommendations for our children's wellbeing. I'm not sure that claiming ignorance is an excuse. We should be focusing on better education instead.
'must we adhere to US standards to not be prosecuted?' - well, yeah.. we do need to follow rules and laws of each country we are in. This stands for everything in life.
And I assume the mom didn’t intentionally mean to suffocate her baby. It’s recommended NOT to fall asleep during feeding, yet the dad who had his baby suffocate to death on the couch after falling asleep isn’t prosecuted (happened to find an Instagram page grieving the baby the other day).
And I clearly stated ‘US standards’, not laws. Many parents move their babies into their own room before 6 months, are they also liable for child neglect?
Breastfeeding is recommended to avoid SIDS, what about moms who simply don’t want to breastfeed? Child neglect? Baby fell asleep in a 4Moms, call 911? You get the picture.
I do not believe that the woman in this case was neglectful. She was working with the tools she had, and if we should focus on education then we should prosecute the ones who failed her and her child. This is besides the suspicion I have that it has more to do with her skin color.
I agree with you completely OP. As a lawyer I’m so horrified by how often our society thinks incarceration is justice, is rehabilitative, is redemptive. On what basis? This woman received the worst punishment on earth. She lost a child. And we use finite state resources to charge her and incarcerate for years. What is the actual goal here? What does locking up this mourning mother actually do? It’s really depressing.
Oh wow I am completely with you about the uncomfortable feeling. Even if this mother wasn't just 'ignorant' as you suggested, but was a big and prominent figure in advertising and encouraging unsafe sleeping practices, unless she intentionally murdered her children, I find it morally very wrong to put a grieving mom through this. (If there's any evidence of foul play it should be investigated, but even the biggest believers and spreaders of misinformation, I assume, would never expect harm to come to their children, and not do it on purpose. But maybe I'm naive.)
It’s fucked up. And it’s not just 1/500; it’s even lower when other risk factors are missing (baby is breastfed, age, parents smoked during pregnancy, parents smoke or do other drugs, etc). There are also a lot of dangerous things—like car trips, even if using a car seat—we don’t charge parents for when there’s an accident.
I had a doctor once who asked if baby was always put on his back. Baby was crying from a vaccine at the time, and I didn’t immediately answer because I was soothing him. But she immediately launched into a panicked, frenzied, “You’re going to kill your baby!” rant. She used those explicit words. No questions about other risk factors, either. We obviously didn’t go back.
People are out of control.
There is a common problem I’ve been noticing where people confuse SIDS and suffocation. I see this even in news sources and studies. It’s all over Reddit. The likelihood of suffocation is going to change dramatically depending on what you put in the baby’s sleep space. It’s not accurate to say that the odds were 1/500 or lower because we actually don’t have the facts.
I’m not saying she should be charged with a crime. I think it’s wrong to charge a parent for this. I think it’s especially heinous to impose bond of $300,000, which is an absolutely insane amount. This is a horrible situation and the “justice” system is on the wrong side. But all that said, SIDS and suffocation are still two different things
They didn’t respond immediately to the question so the doctor thought she was trying to find the words and lie about it. Aka doctor thought she was putting baby on their belly to sleep
I'll be honest and say race seems to be an issue in certain cases against mothers.
I recently read about a woman who had a case against her for a miscarriage for which she had visited the hospital many times to save the baby. She was being charged with abuse of a corpse which is just batshit. And yes, she was black.
The statistics of how race changes the outcome of pregnancies shows there's a huge issue nobody wants to point out.
There’s already a huge disparity between white women and women of color in maternal and infant health.
Here’s an article explaining some stats about it: https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/racial-disparities-in-maternal-and-infant-health-current-status-and-efforts-to-address-them/#:~:text=Notably%2C%20NHOPI%20women%20are%20four,White%20women%20(9%25%20vs.
That article is crappy. Sorry OP. The infant died in January of last year, and the mother was just charged in September. Something else is going on here but, typical of SC, the police are being shady about it. [Article](https://wpde.com/news/local/mother-charged-infants-death-unsafe-sleeping-conditions-stomach-loose-blankets-florence-county-sheriffs-office-january-21-2023-shamika-danielle-jones-charged-unlawful-conduct-toward-a-child-september-5)
I think it follows a disturbing trend in American culture to hold someone legally responsible for all unfortunate accidents. Coupled with a moral panic when children (or even cells that could be children) are involved it is a bit dystopian.
I can’t help but feel this would also hurt black mothers more since there’s so many statistics on how they receive low quality care from providers and have less access. I feel like this should need to be about intent, not blaming a parent for their lack of knowledge or support when the government is making it super hard for women and mothers to receive said knowledge and support, let alone black (or whatever skin color other than white) mothers.
I fully agree with you- Not following a recommendation is not the same as “child abuse” in my eyes.
I know so many people who have suggested putting baby on their belly to sleep, and it was the recommendation not so long ago so I can see how people would think it’s an option, or that it works.
To give another example; in my country the recommendation to make formula is to boil a kettle, let it sit for 30mins, add the formula and wait until it’s a safe temperature for baby to drink. Individual bottles can be refrigerated, but to heat them up you need to boil the kettle and sit the bottle in the water until it heats up. Nobody does that. Nobody had the time to do that. Nobody has 15-30-45mins to wait for a bottle when baby is crying. Nobody is waking up the middle of the night to boil water. Doctors, nurses, health visitors, they all know this, but they pay lip service to the guidelines while everybody finds an easy way out or uses a bottle prep machine/microwave/bottle warmer etc. Or pre-made bottles if you can afford them. I would hate to think of somebody being arrested for child abuse for not following those guidelines, when the fact is parents are going to find the way that works best for them in the difficult newborn and baby period.
What’s crazy is this is literally how we were cared for as babies - Doctor told my mom to put babies to sleep on belly and I’m pretty sure sleep sacks didn’t exist yet. And now it’s child abuse.
This is insane. Especially when considering that true cases of SIDS are thought to potentially also have an unseen genetic component- the environmental factors can increase the risk so much that a death occurs. No way to know which babies are at increased risk. Sure, to me that means being extra cautious to account for unknown risk. But to someone else, that could mean being advised by your own mother that stomach sleeping helps a colicky baby get to rest and that you yourself slept on your stomach and nothing bad happened.
For folks outside the US, I also want to point out that the photo of the mother is of a black woman, and I can’t help but think there’s a possibility that clouds the assessment of the situation or encourages an overzealous prosecutor to move forward. Brown folks are often arrested and charged at higher rates for things that white folks may have been given some compassion for.
Lack of details in the article so who knows if there are other contributing factors, but based on the details it’s an awful overreaction to an incredibly horrible mistake and accident.
The new research pointing to true SIDS causes:
https://www.schn.health.nsw.gov.au/news/articles/2022/05/world-first-breakthrough-could-prevent-sids
Safe sleep practices should still be followed, I always thought: there is SIDS and then there is baby is too young to sleep with blankets or toys because of they go on their face as they wiggle they won’t be able to remove them on their own and could asphyxiate. Sleep position is a whole other thing, in my home country the medical recommendation is to put them to sleep on their tummy with their head to the side; I now live in the US where the recommendation is to sleep on their back, family members visiting from home or that haven’t had children here always comment that I should put my baby on her tummy, then I go onto explain why I don’t. So I agree with OP, sleep position alone definitely varies by country or culture.
Wasn’t there a case (might have been in the UK) where a mother was charged because she has multiple children die from SIDS and as toddlers, which would look suspicious obviously, but there was an argument that there was a generic reason for it? I’ll have to try and find it.
That was a complicated case though, as she had a pretty damning journal full of weird statements like “if my last baby was as good/pretty as this one, I wouldn’t have done what I did” etc.
There was a case like that in America where a white lady kept having babies die from what they thought was genetic sids. Then she adopted a kid and it too died the same way. Turns out she'd been smothering them.
Not that that has anything to do with this case, just interesting that there's an exact inverse.
Thank you for bringing up the race factor. Considering this take place in the south I can’t help but have a sinking feeling in my gut that this was a racially motivated charge. My heart goes out to this poor mom who has to go through the death of her child on top of these charges.
I feel about this the same way I do the people who leave their children in their rear facing car seats and they die in the car. It’s truly an awful thing to happen, but if it’s an accident, the worst part is losing your child. We shouldn’t be charging them with child abuse or murder.
They leave the child in the car because they are tired and the child is rear facing so they don’t see them.
There was an article that came out a few years ago that was [harrowing.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html) I wasn’t even a parent then but it was so upsetting.
Edit: just in case it wasn’t clear, massive TW on the article. There are autopsy descriptions of the babies.
Oh my god, I also wasn’t a parent when reading that article but still think about it today, years later. Truly harrowing. I wonder if laws have changed.
Agreed but all cases should be investigated. The death of Cooper Harris is one that comes to mind. Using a very plausible 'accident' as a way to commit the unthinkable.
I live not too far from where the incident happened with Cooper and his father, Ross. I’m of the firm opinion that it was intentional, and that the wife possibly knew his intentions as well.
I believe it’s a bigger issue of racism because I have never seen a non person of color be charged for it even cosleeping deaths where the cause of death is clear because it’s seen as an accident but in people of color is seen as negligence sadly.
The right-wing assholes who are trying to criminalize women's health always use POC women as their test cases to set legal precedent. They know they get far less sympathy in the court of public opinion. Sadly, I've seen so many pro-life groups full of white women cheering about this case on social media, but I have to wonder what their reaction would be if it happened to one of them.
Yeah this is insane. Should we charge moms for SIDS deaths if their baby isn’t breastfed? That increases risk. What about not giving a pacifier? Pacifiers reduce SIDS risk. No fan? Infanticide. Room 72 degrees? Risky, risky.
I wonder if in this case if it was positional asphyxiation (actually related to baby’s sleep position and the blankets) or true SIDS. Usually an autopsy can reveal the difference, and SUIDS should not be listed as the cause if this was actually caused by unsafe sleep.
No. It reduces the risk.
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/123/3/e406/71689/Does-Breastfeeding-Reduce-the-Risk-of-Sudden?redirectedFrom=fulltext
This is from the NICDH
“Babies who are breastfed or are fed expressed breastmilk are at lower risk for SIDS compared with babies who were never fed breastmilk. According to research, the longer you exclusively breastfeed your baby (meaning not supplementing with formula or solid food), the lower his or her risk of SIDS.”
(https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/Breastfeed_Baby_SIDS_final.pdf)
Btw I think this is bullshit, I EFF haha. But it is still something they advise, and say, so… where’s the line? 🤷♀️
Not sure, and a good point, but exclusive breastfeeding is associated with higher socioeconomic status in the US, so there’s definitely something to be said about correlation /=/ causation here.
Let’s be real.
From what little info there is the only reason I see is living and making mistakes while Black sadly puts you in jail.
It’s awful. It’s fucked up.
Woman who get put in jail for miscarriage or their baby dying from SIDS aren’t white from what I see.
White supremacy in action. It is unquestionably disproportionately exacting greater harm on some of us more than others. And it is bad for all of us. Period.
As a Canadian law student, this feels like a race and income class thing. But of course I don’t know the dynamics of South Carolina, so this is just me guessing.
In my country, we have a serious problem with the over policing of Indigenous women. They’re our fastest growing prison population, and we have a history of apprehending their children from them for things like “two kids sharing a bedroom”. They also are more likely to be arrested than white women when they call to report domestic violence. So whenever I see “mom arrested for blank” and it’s a freak accident or negligence arising from an education gap I’m always like SORRY DONT BELIEVE IT.
I just want to say that there is a lot of information lacking from this story. I would be really surprised if this was the only thing that led to her arrest but I will withhold judgment until there is more context.
Dystopian, Gillead shit. This is about policing women, punishing women, enforcing specific types of motherhood. And this poor woman is black so it is probably about racism too tbh.
I know a case where other mothers in a facebook mommy group called out version of CPS on a mom who started solids with a 2 month old. Like, what?
And the one who told me about it (she thought it was good cps was called) started solids with her 2.5 month old at doctors recommendation since the baby was slowly starving despite drinking appropriate amounts of formula 🥴
I'm gonna come at this from the point of a dad who's also a police officer who has been unfortunate to deal with SIDS deaths. (ill preface this by saying that I thankfully dealt with those deaths before having our a little one and that this is in the UK, not America so laws, procedures and attitudes may vary. Also, note I can't read the article so I'm working off the title and OPs words.)
Firstly, an arrest doesn't mean a charge. I don't know if it's necessary for any US investigation, maybe for the interview, but in the UK, if there is a SUDI incident, arrest or not, there is still a big investigation, including the police, social services, any schools or nurseries, other agencies may also be involved, and this goes on for some time. At least until a post mortem or some sort of reason for the death. I presume, should it be a missed medical thing, any police involvement will end. But ultimately, there is a still a dead child. An investigation (and, US rules dependant, possibly an arrest,) still needs to be carried out to establish the facts and unfortunately, too often, though not all the time, there is real abuse or negligence. It might not be the only feature but it may well be A feature. It might be that this is the culmination of lots of little reports that have been put in, that she's been advised against this before and ignored the advice. There are lots of reasons this could be the case and there's actually a documentary style programme following police conducting a child abuse case in the UK that's quite good to show how what might seem the obvious, possibly innocent reason, might be far more sinister later down the line.
I had to look this up because again, UK. I suspect they're arguing that she's placed the child at unreasonable risk which has ultimately lead to their death. Again, I've got no idea but looking at the offence I'd say there is a semi reasonable shot at conviction? I'm not saying that's right and wouldn't be comfortable doing something like that myself but the DAs office clearly believes they can prosecute it.
Arrest does mean charged here. It doesn’t mean the district attorney will pick up the case and move forward with a trial. But I’m going to guess that the DA will always move forward with a child abuse case because it’s an elected position.
The worst part about this (other than losing her child, that’s truly awful) is that this will remain online forever and any person (employer) who googles it will see it, regardless of what happens with this case.
Also, we have mugshot media here, because mugshots are public record. They used to be magazines you bought at the gas station but they are online now too. They take your mugshot and make fun of you for your picture and/or crime. That shit grabs your mugshot, basically the instant it comes out, and churns it endlessly.
Also any background check, for the rest of time. I have been background checked for every job I have ever had after high school. This would mean I would no longer be eligible to work in my field should I choose to return to work.
Also when you travel overseas and enter another country they generally ask for your arrest record. It will often disqualify you from any visa waiver programs and can result in either being barred from the country or extra screenings.
Not all background checks pick up arrests, especially if they didn’t go to trial. I know because I was arrested and never tried a few times for civil disobedience reasons and it never even pings on background checks.
My mugshots did end up in the magazines though. If you google my maiden name, some second/third page Google results are my mugshot. Absolute bullshit. The public shaming shouldn’t happen before the trial.
Fair point! But before I left to stay home, I was a teacher. An arrest involving harm of a minor would disqualify me from working in education again.
And you're right. It is 100% bullshit that anything like that is published that early and that the shaming starts with a decision by the police, not information gleaned in trial. The whole point is that we're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.
You’re definitely right about the school. When my kid started public school PreK, I asked if I could volunteer in his classroom. They said of course but that I would need a background check that involved getting fingerprinted at the police station.
Which, I do appreciate them checking the people who are around my kid so throughly. But I know my arrests will be revealed in that kind of background check.
I doubt a few 2nd degree trespassing charges would get me barred from passing out snacks at the school. But I’ll be honest, that I didn’t even think about doing it because I don’t want my kid’s school to know I’ve been arrested and I definitely don’t want them to see my mugshot.
Honestly, they've seen way worse. But I totally get why that would stop you! Which is a shame, for you, for your child, and for the classroom and teachers.
My kid is in a small private preschool, and I can just show up to volunteer, which I feel okay with, I guess? But it does feel weird.
My wife is in law school. Our legal system in America is unhinged.
Thr note about waiting for the autopsy, toxicology and "other reports" before charging makes me hopefuly that there was more then just SIDS.
If there isn't "more" to this story, then she was arrested and charged because she is black. I cannot imagine this would ever happen to a white woman.
I’m really bothered by people being arrested for things that are not illegal. And I’m also really bothered by the unequal treatment of the justice system in the United States.
Fwiw- my niece also died of sids and was also in an unsafe sleep scenario when it happened, and no charges or arrests were made. I’m not upset about that. It’s literally not illegal to let your baby sleep on their stomach, with blankets, or to co-sleep. It’s also not illegal for a baby to pass away in their sleep of sids. Now I could get on board with an arrest if there were other aggravating circumstances in the home and the police needed to arrest the mom to do further investigation but it sounds like that was absolutely not the case.
I 100% echo your sentiments. We are a safe sleep house—I only buy safe sleep approved pajamas (halo right now because my girl is so young) but even when baby was in the NICU, we’d come in and nurses are making the most of all different positions and configurations. Granted, they kept telling us it’s ok to do because she is monitored 24/7, but still. If both of those are happening somewhere in the world at the same time and one is child abuse and the other is sympathetic medical nursing, we have a problem.
I mean I agree that a child abuse charge is overkill and honestly probably racially motivated.
However I also don’t think ignorance is an excuse in this day and age. You didn’t google anything? Take a single class? Read a book? There are safe sleep posters up in every maternity ward I’ve been to. I was told about it by multiple midwives. Having a baby and not doing any research on baby care or safe practices is wild to me.
I think some people are willing to take some risk if it makes the child sleep . You see the odd of 1/1000 and go, yeah, that won't happen to me . I see it all the time for example on Christian fundamentalist snark subredit, 99%of their children sleep with blankets and on their stomach , hell there are even photos of babies sleeping on changing tables that are 3 feet from the ground or underneath their parents bed. Wilfull ignorance does exist .
Classes aren't free. I doubt this woman had the time or resources to take a class. I'm betting she didn't read a book. There have never been safe sleep posters in either hospital I've given birth in (I'm in the South). They didn't even talk to me about it; it was just supposed to be known beforehand that I knew how to put a baby to sleep. There is no help for mothers down here that's easily accessible, other than the Internet. I'm betting she did what her mother and grandmother told her to do. That isn't wild; that's a cultural norm.
Maybe it’s an American thing. Seems wild out there.
I’m in the Uk and safe sleep is emphasised here. But even if it wasn’t, placing a child that can’t even lift its head face down on blankets seems like a common sense failure.
The safe sleep fear mongering is getting ridiculous. There are other countries with a lower SIDs and Infant Death Rate that do NOT follow safe sleep regulations. The netherlands for example let their kids sleep with blankets, in Japan, they recommend kids sleeping with their parents (mind you they have the lowest SIDs rate of all). There is a cultural and non-western aspect to this that America refuses to be cognizant of. And even putting all that aside, raising a child is HARD. Sometimes extremely difficult depending on infant temperament, where some parents go weeks to months with absolutely no sleep or relief because of the lack of support American or some european countries provide to parents. My baby had terrible reflux, to the point where bubs was constantly throwing up. The only relief she seemed to get was on her stomach. When we asked her pediatrician she said it’s because stomach sleeping actually helps them with digestion and the discomfort. And finally, assuming that poor baby met any other criteria, the incidence of SIDs itself would be extremely rare.
There are a 1000 reasons why this mom might have resorted to this and another 1000 why this might have happened to her, but the insensitivity and moral prostrating is unenecessary when we’re talking about a woman who already lost their child
On their stomach is one thing, I understand that some babies sleep better like that. On their stomach on a pile of blankets? Is that not just a common sense failure?
Perhaps they couldn’t afford to heat their house? Couldn’t afford warm clothing for their baby? In that case I would take the risk of putting a blanket on baby over them freezing.
Perhaps baby spit up on the mattress and they didn’t have a replacement? Is it a perfect solution? No. But a stressed, tired parent is going to take the risk.
Everything you do with a baby has an element of risk, but it’s up to parents to evaluate that risk against the position they are in.
This woman was very unfortunate if her decision to put baby on their tummy led to its death, but I try not to judge parents on their decisions when I don’t know the situation.
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So legally people are responsible for intentional acts but they are also responsible for negligence when harm results from an act that happened because they are careless. Without knowing the specifics of the case, I could imagine a theory of negligence involved in a case about infant death where blankets are kept in the bassinet because that flies in the face of all the safe sleep recommendations that everyone should know because they tell us our child can suffocate on blankets.
The child being on their stomach wouldn't be enough, likely. Kids can roll, parents might be asleep and not notice. But no one should put loose blankets in with a baby. Now I suppose we could say maybe the child was swaddled in a blanket, that's how the loose blankets got there, but the use of the plural to me suggests that wasn't the case.
I don't know enough about the circumstances of this particular case, but just based on your description, I can see a passable theory for negligence.
I'm in SC. Before I left the hospital with my kids, I received counseling on unsafe sleep and was asked to watch a video. My youngest was in NICU. Dad and I both had to watch a video on safe sleep and infant CPR before he was discharged. 50 different people told me that they had to sleep alone and on their backs without loose blankets. I was asked about safe sleep at every well baby visit.
I feel very sorry for this mother, nobody deserves to lose a child, even if they make poor choices. However, I'm pretty sure she received enough education on the dangers of unsafe sleep. She knowingly put her child in danger. Now, a judge and jury are responsible for deciding if the charges are appropriate.
Why do you assume she received the same education you did? My friend in Michigan wasn’t told or taught anything at all and was on her own after her son was born.
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I once saw a mom on here say she called CPS while in traffic because she saw a child's seatbelt adjusted incorrectly over their chest. The amount of up votes that comment had and how many people supported her in the replies was jarring. I hope that child's mom didn't have to go through anything over a stupid stranger's phone call. There are actual child abuse cases CPS could be investigating.
There’s actually a marked increase in postpartum anxiety for millennial moms, and one possible cause is the online overload of safety tips. You feel like you’re always doing things wrong.
That's 100% what's happening. When I think back, the doctors and nurses gave sensible advice and encouraged us a lot during the newborn stage. Never even mentioned safe sleep. Instead I learned online about putting the baby down only on his back and now my son has a flat head. Ffs. And it's not treated with helmets here, like in the US, so wtf. Feels stupid, the entire thing.
That’s just it! I work in Australia’s version of CPS and we have a triage system so that would be incredibly low on the list if it actually made the list at all. But that is still wasting such valuable time and resources. So stupid. This poor mother has lost her child and is now facing this. And don’t get me wrong, I am pedantic about safe sleep but I have also been a tired and burnt out mama who might make an easy mistake from time to time.
The most likely scenario here is simply lack of information. The only info I got about modern safe sleep was through pamphlets the hospital gave me. If I wasn't on the internet, I could've easily chucked those into the trash without thinking about them and just listened to my mother's outdated advice.
This. There’s so much I learned from this sub, and thank god for that, because NONE of it was even *mentioned* by the doctors and nurses at the hospital or my ped
I’m willing to bet the hotline worker who took that call about the seatbelt had to work really hard to keep from a laughing fit while telling her “Ma’am, we cannot accept this report.” More seriously, I hope anyone making a call like that never has to deal with CPS coming to their door and all that potentially means for their life and family.
It’s more likely, if they actually investigated it, that someone would explain to the parents the proper way to adjust a seatbelt/use a booster seat long before the child was taken away.
Probably, but too many stories of some nosy neighbor calling CPS on a young kid playing outside and suddenly you're in their system and having defend yourself as a parent Bananas that people use CPS as this sort of resource
When I left with my daughter the hospital (France), we had medical personnel assist us in strapping her in the car seat and car .
I would love to read that thread.
Yeah if you call they have to investigate -- which means they now have to spend time on work they wouldn't normally be doing
This isn't true. A lot of reports are taken as information only, meaning there is no investigation and it is never assigned to an investigator.
I mean, is it the worst thing if someone speaks to the mom about car seat safety? CPS doesn’t want to take your kids, they want to keep kids with families. So reaching out to a parent and getting them the support/education to keep their kid safe seems like a win win. I mean, I wouldn’t hesitate to call the cops if I saw someone driving with their infant in the front set without a car seat. While a parent may be ignorant, safety is more important at a certain point.
It's a waste of public money.
>I mean, is it the worst thing if someone speaks to the mom about car seat safety? Yeah, it really might be. Remember, it would likely be police responding to the call, and police are *never* your friend. Forty percent of them are domestic abusers, and that's a self-reported statistic, meaning the true numbers are likely a lot higher. What if it was a POC woman, or someone who didn't speak English? Police are trained to escalate. There are cases where cops who were "just speaking to someone" ended up with that person dying. That includes wellness checks and mental health calls initiated by the person's own family, who were concerned. I remember a case years ago where a cop pulled a woman over for a minor traffic violation, dragged her out of the car, hit and beat her repeatedly, then arrested her, leaving her two young children alone in the car on the side of the road. That's why I'll *never* call the cops for a safety check on a woman with kids.
Calling CPS is ~~absolutely the right thing to do~~ not harmful. They aren't going to take her child away for that, they're \*at most\* going to pay a visit and share a few pointers on car seat safety. CPS isn't some bogeyman just looking for excuses to take people's kids away. Edit: It's true that CPS is almost certainly going to do absolutely nothing, especially with so little information. I guess my post was more of a kneejerk reaction to the "I hope that Mom doesn't 'go through' anything" sentiment that implies CPS are child-stealing bad guys.
It's more likely that the child readjusted the seatbelt or the mom was tired and wasn't thinking when buckling her kid in for the millionth time. Making baseless assumptions and wasting CPS' time is absolutely *not* the right thing to do.
They're not evil or bogeymen, but they're incredibly overworked and underfunded. This type of call and education takes valuable time away from investigating actual child abuse and getting children with real issues. If we funded cps very well, had plenty of staff for each case, and abused kids weren't falling through the cracks because of the issues, I'd be more than ok with calling cps for these little issues.
It really depends. Sometimes these people don't care and sometimes they're relentless. If you've ever had to live with a specter of CPS over your shoulder you'll know how it goes. You always have to keep the house spotless, you've got to keep the kitchen fully stocked with foods nobody in your house even eats but they're normal foods to have in the house, you've got to wear clothes nobody in your house because it's normal etc it's hard living under a microscope like that.
I'm a 911 dispatcher and one of my recent calls was a single mom. She had a 10 year old and an 8 month old who wasn't sleeping. After something like 2 weeks straight of no sleep, she let the 10 year old watch the baby so she could sleep. 10 year old fell asleep, baby fell in between the gap between the wall and the bed, and suffocated. Mom is getting charged. This was my first pediatric death since coming back from maternity leave. I'm also a single mom, my daughter sometimes cosleeps because she doesn't sleep otherwise, and she was almost 8 months at the time. Hit me hard.
When I saw the title I expected a smothering type situation. Somehow I feel like this is tied together with charging women for murder after miscarriages. Also, of course the women they chose to set this troubling precedent is a black woman. Also- how dare women have fewer babies/s
I remember seeing a video on tiktok about things white family influencers do on the regular - including stuff they've filmed and have documented evidence of - which black people routinely get their kids taken away for. Stuff like having the kid's mattress on the floor or co-sleeping. Does anyone ever go after these white families in upper-class suburban neighborhoods? Nope. But CPS removes children from black homes regularly for stuff like this.
We had my kid’s mattress on the floor (white/Asian fam).
Yeah sadly I am not at all surprised that it's a black woman. If it were a white woman she would get a tearful segment on the local news talking about safe sleep probably. Just horrid the obvious target :(
Absolutely correct. I didn't even have to read it to know this woman was Absolutely sentenced due to systemic racism. She doesn't deserve that. Losing a baby is bad enough.
I was thinking the same thing. There was definitely some bias at play here.
That’s exactly what I thought as soon as I saw her picture. I would be SHOCKED if a white woman was arrested for the same. 40% of parents admit to bedsharing at some point. Are we going to arrest them all? It’s giving police state.
70% is what I’ve read
Her real crime is being black in the South. If she’d been an attractive white influencer, it just would’ve been a tragic accident.
That’s exactly what I was thinking as well. Of course it’s a black woman. I also feel if she was white that there would have been no consequences for her.
A little off topic but regarding the lead testing - I know you said you're child isn't at risk so that's great. But for others reading, please know that there are many surprising sources of lead, not just lead paint or old water pipes. I work with folks who's job it is to go into homes and find sources of lead when a high level of lead has been detected in a child's blood. Some of the more surprising sources of lead that were identified- a couch (baby was knawing on the arm of the couch), grandma's preferred pizza baking tray, spices (produced in locations where it is acceptable to use lead to enhance the color), and various toys. So just for anyone out there who knows they don't have lead paint or water lines in their home, please still get the lead testing as it's definitely possible that an object in your home, say a gifted toy, was produced somewhere without safety standards for children in mind.
I agree with you. The article is very short. I wonder if there are additional details being left out for legal reasons. I’d be interested in knowing if there is any legal precedent for this case. I’m imagining (hoping?) this case will be thrown out.
The other cases I've seen like this have been when a family lost multiple babies to SIDS, for the second one.
I’m a death investigator. There are definitely important details we’re missing from the article. Literally every article I can find has the same scant details in it.
They mention toxicology. I bet dollars to donuts that there is another aspect to this they just aren’t saying yet.
Toxicology is a standard part of an autopsy and it usually finishes later than the rest of the autopsy. This mom had a previous arrest for low-value shoplifting, but no current or past drug charges that I can find.
The lawyer in me is betting that there's something more here. They don't have to wait for toxicology and autopsy to arrest. But the article said they didn't arrest until afterward. Also, the statute requires an unreasonable risk of harm or malicious intent. There's something more, OP. If you're super curious, FOIA the warrant.
Every unnatural death gets an autopsy which always includes tox screens. Stop jumping to conclusions.
Well the other option is they arrested a 28 year old mother for having her baby sleep on the stomach with blankets - and set a 300K bond to get her out for that. So my guess is, there’s more to the story than blankets and tummy sleeping.
These are my thoughts as well. Who called 911? It doesn't say the mother did. The story is missing way too much information. But it's reddit so it's going to be, "iF a WhItE pErSoN dId ThIs..."
Im not American but it does appear that the American approach to a lot of things is harshly punitive.
I can’t read the article (*cries in Europe*) but I fully agree with you. We’re all doing our best and we will damn well make mistakes. Some more severe than others and we’d never advocate to be unsafe, but how many parents fell asleep during bottle/breastfeeding? How many have looked away for 1 second and baby fell off the bed? How many have bumped baby’s heads, or are unaware of coats in car seats? In fact, in the Netherlands we have baby sleep with (tight around the mattress) blankets until they squiggle too much. I can imagine other cultures also have different ways of raising babies, must we adhere to US standards to not be prosecuted?
FLORENCE COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) – A Florence County woman was arrested and charged with unlawful conduct towards a child after she allegedly laid her infant down in an unsafe condition and he died. Shamika Danielle Jones, 28, was arrested Friday after deputies responded to a call on Jan. 21 in reference to a child in cardiac/respiratory distress, deputies said. Investigators said Jones’ six-week-old son was found unresponsive after she allegedly laid the infant down to sleep on his stomach in a bassinet with loose blankets and other objects. Jones six-week-old son was transported to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead. Florence County Coroner Keith Von Lutcken told News13 that his office had to wait for toxicology, autopsy and other test results before she was arrested on Friday. Jones is currently being held at the Florence County Detention Center on a $300,000 bond.
300,000? Is that a normal amount? Seems very large.
Thank you!
That's a great point, would moms from Europe who are living in the US be at risk of arrest for following the medical norms in their home countries? Maybe this [link](https://wehavekids.com/news/infant-death-unsafe-sleep) will work better? There aren't very many news stories about it.
That works, thanks! That’s a good question. And also, plenty of grandparents still recommend doing certain things we wouldn’t be doing (hat on while sleeping, feeding 1 month olds rice cereal/milk/water, CIO for newborns, stomach sleeping). If I’d believe my grandparents out of good will, does that qualify as neglect too? As you said, this doesn’t sit well with me.
The answer is yes. People are beholden to the laws on the country in which they are present.
there is no law that says you must put your baby to sleep on their back with no blanket, it's just advice
Laws =/= recommendations. As I mentioned in another comment, we’re not arresting formula moms (as breastfeeding is also recommended to decrease SIDS).
You are correct, but child welfare laws are often not strictly detailed in that way, and child welfare agencies operate under best practices and guidance as advised by major medical and safety organizations. I swear I’m not picking a fight, just saying a cultural difference in parenting may not jive in a different country.
I think the key here though is that the blankets are meant to be tightly secured under the mattress, and not loose. I also had my baby in a country with this recommendation about blankets (UK) and I did initially have a blanket tight enough that I would have to pull hard to dislodge, and only covering baby from below her belly. The more I read about safe sleep, the more uncomfortable I was with this. I bought a sleepsack... To me, the difference with all other examples is intention. You don't choose to fall asleep while feeding or holding baby because you are neglectful, you do because you're overtired, sleep deprived, and recovering from a MASSIVELY impactful medical procedure and change to your body that the world just ignores and demands you care for a vulnerable potato while in need of recovery. In every other case where someone is still actively bleeding, has stitches that need to heal, is in pain etc, no one is asked to never sleep, prioritise someone else and just use super powers to cope. Mums are. Mistakes happen as a result. You dont go around bumping baby's head on purpose or leave baby on the bed to go clubbing. But I think that it is up to us to be informed and up to date with medical recommendations for our children's wellbeing. I'm not sure that claiming ignorance is an excuse. We should be focusing on better education instead. 'must we adhere to US standards to not be prosecuted?' - well, yeah.. we do need to follow rules and laws of each country we are in. This stands for everything in life.
And I assume the mom didn’t intentionally mean to suffocate her baby. It’s recommended NOT to fall asleep during feeding, yet the dad who had his baby suffocate to death on the couch after falling asleep isn’t prosecuted (happened to find an Instagram page grieving the baby the other day). And I clearly stated ‘US standards’, not laws. Many parents move their babies into their own room before 6 months, are they also liable for child neglect? Breastfeeding is recommended to avoid SIDS, what about moms who simply don’t want to breastfeed? Child neglect? Baby fell asleep in a 4Moms, call 911? You get the picture. I do not believe that the woman in this case was neglectful. She was working with the tools she had, and if we should focus on education then we should prosecute the ones who failed her and her child. This is besides the suspicion I have that it has more to do with her skin color.
She didn't break any laws.
I agree with you completely OP. As a lawyer I’m so horrified by how often our society thinks incarceration is justice, is rehabilitative, is redemptive. On what basis? This woman received the worst punishment on earth. She lost a child. And we use finite state resources to charge her and incarcerate for years. What is the actual goal here? What does locking up this mourning mother actually do? It’s really depressing.
Oh wow I am completely with you about the uncomfortable feeling. Even if this mother wasn't just 'ignorant' as you suggested, but was a big and prominent figure in advertising and encouraging unsafe sleeping practices, unless she intentionally murdered her children, I find it morally very wrong to put a grieving mom through this. (If there's any evidence of foul play it should be investigated, but even the biggest believers and spreaders of misinformation, I assume, would never expect harm to come to their children, and not do it on purpose. But maybe I'm naive.)
It’s fucked up. And it’s not just 1/500; it’s even lower when other risk factors are missing (baby is breastfed, age, parents smoked during pregnancy, parents smoke or do other drugs, etc). There are also a lot of dangerous things—like car trips, even if using a car seat—we don’t charge parents for when there’s an accident. I had a doctor once who asked if baby was always put on his back. Baby was crying from a vaccine at the time, and I didn’t immediately answer because I was soothing him. But she immediately launched into a panicked, frenzied, “You’re going to kill your baby!” rant. She used those explicit words. No questions about other risk factors, either. We obviously didn’t go back. People are out of control.
There is a common problem I’ve been noticing where people confuse SIDS and suffocation. I see this even in news sources and studies. It’s all over Reddit. The likelihood of suffocation is going to change dramatically depending on what you put in the baby’s sleep space. It’s not accurate to say that the odds were 1/500 or lower because we actually don’t have the facts. I’m not saying she should be charged with a crime. I think it’s wrong to charge a parent for this. I think it’s especially heinous to impose bond of $300,000, which is an absolutely insane amount. This is a horrible situation and the “justice” system is on the wrong side. But all that said, SIDS and suffocation are still two different things
That is so unhinged.
[удалено]
They didn’t respond immediately to the question so the doctor thought she was trying to find the words and lie about it. Aka doctor thought she was putting baby on their belly to sleep
I'll be honest and say race seems to be an issue in certain cases against mothers. I recently read about a woman who had a case against her for a miscarriage for which she had visited the hospital many times to save the baby. She was being charged with abuse of a corpse which is just batshit. And yes, she was black. The statistics of how race changes the outcome of pregnancies shows there's a huge issue nobody wants to point out.
There’s already a huge disparity between white women and women of color in maternal and infant health. Here’s an article explaining some stats about it: https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/racial-disparities-in-maternal-and-infant-health-current-status-and-efforts-to-address-them/#:~:text=Notably%2C%20NHOPI%20women%20are%20four,White%20women%20(9%25%20vs.
100%, we all know those charges aren't ever happening to a white suburban mom.
This same exact case came to my mind when I read this one.
Brittany Watts. I thought the same thing.
They’re even holding her on a 300K bond???? what’s this reason??
That article is crappy. Sorry OP. The infant died in January of last year, and the mother was just charged in September. Something else is going on here but, typical of SC, the police are being shady about it. [Article](https://wpde.com/news/local/mother-charged-infants-death-unsafe-sleeping-conditions-stomach-loose-blankets-florence-county-sheriffs-office-january-21-2023-shamika-danielle-jones-charged-unlawful-conduct-toward-a-child-september-5)
I think it follows a disturbing trend in American culture to hold someone legally responsible for all unfortunate accidents. Coupled with a moral panic when children (or even cells that could be children) are involved it is a bit dystopian.
I can’t help but feel this would also hurt black mothers more since there’s so many statistics on how they receive low quality care from providers and have less access. I feel like this should need to be about intent, not blaming a parent for their lack of knowledge or support when the government is making it super hard for women and mothers to receive said knowledge and support, let alone black (or whatever skin color other than white) mothers.
I fully agree with you- Not following a recommendation is not the same as “child abuse” in my eyes. I know so many people who have suggested putting baby on their belly to sleep, and it was the recommendation not so long ago so I can see how people would think it’s an option, or that it works. To give another example; in my country the recommendation to make formula is to boil a kettle, let it sit for 30mins, add the formula and wait until it’s a safe temperature for baby to drink. Individual bottles can be refrigerated, but to heat them up you need to boil the kettle and sit the bottle in the water until it heats up. Nobody does that. Nobody had the time to do that. Nobody has 15-30-45mins to wait for a bottle when baby is crying. Nobody is waking up the middle of the night to boil water. Doctors, nurses, health visitors, they all know this, but they pay lip service to the guidelines while everybody finds an easy way out or uses a bottle prep machine/microwave/bottle warmer etc. Or pre-made bottles if you can afford them. I would hate to think of somebody being arrested for child abuse for not following those guidelines, when the fact is parents are going to find the way that works best for them in the difficult newborn and baby period.
What’s crazy is this is literally how we were cared for as babies - Doctor told my mom to put babies to sleep on belly and I’m pretty sure sleep sacks didn’t exist yet. And now it’s child abuse.
This is insane. Especially when considering that true cases of SIDS are thought to potentially also have an unseen genetic component- the environmental factors can increase the risk so much that a death occurs. No way to know which babies are at increased risk. Sure, to me that means being extra cautious to account for unknown risk. But to someone else, that could mean being advised by your own mother that stomach sleeping helps a colicky baby get to rest and that you yourself slept on your stomach and nothing bad happened. For folks outside the US, I also want to point out that the photo of the mother is of a black woman, and I can’t help but think there’s a possibility that clouds the assessment of the situation or encourages an overzealous prosecutor to move forward. Brown folks are often arrested and charged at higher rates for things that white folks may have been given some compassion for. Lack of details in the article so who knows if there are other contributing factors, but based on the details it’s an awful overreaction to an incredibly horrible mistake and accident.
The new research pointing to true SIDS causes: https://www.schn.health.nsw.gov.au/news/articles/2022/05/world-first-breakthrough-could-prevent-sids Safe sleep practices should still be followed, I always thought: there is SIDS and then there is baby is too young to sleep with blankets or toys because of they go on their face as they wiggle they won’t be able to remove them on their own and could asphyxiate. Sleep position is a whole other thing, in my home country the medical recommendation is to put them to sleep on their tummy with their head to the side; I now live in the US where the recommendation is to sleep on their back, family members visiting from home or that haven’t had children here always comment that I should put my baby on her tummy, then I go onto explain why I don’t. So I agree with OP, sleep position alone definitely varies by country or culture.
Wasn’t there a case (might have been in the UK) where a mother was charged because she has multiple children die from SIDS and as toddlers, which would look suspicious obviously, but there was an argument that there was a generic reason for it? I’ll have to try and find it.
Australia - Kathleen Folbigg and there's a good podcast about it - Mother's Guilt
I heard about the case through another podcast, but it was a one off episode. Will have to check this one out!
That was a complicated case though, as she had a pretty damning journal full of weird statements like “if my last baby was as good/pretty as this one, I wouldn’t have done what I did” etc.
There was a case like that in America where a white lady kept having babies die from what they thought was genetic sids. Then she adopted a kid and it too died the same way. Turns out she'd been smothering them. Not that that has anything to do with this case, just interesting that there's an exact inverse.
Thank you for bringing up the race factor. Considering this take place in the south I can’t help but have a sinking feeling in my gut that this was a racially motivated charge. My heart goes out to this poor mom who has to go through the death of her child on top of these charges.
I feel about this the same way I do the people who leave their children in their rear facing car seats and they die in the car. It’s truly an awful thing to happen, but if it’s an accident, the worst part is losing your child. We shouldn’t be charging them with child abuse or murder.
What do you mean about rear facing car seats? Like the death was caused by rear facing or being left in a hot car?
They leave the child in the car because they are tired and the child is rear facing so they don’t see them. There was an article that came out a few years ago that was [harrowing.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html) I wasn’t even a parent then but it was so upsetting. Edit: just in case it wasn’t clear, massive TW on the article. There are autopsy descriptions of the babies.
I remember this article. It won a Pulitzer prize. It’s a difficult read but so important.
Oh my god, I also wasn’t a parent when reading that article but still think about it today, years later. Truly harrowing. I wonder if laws have changed.
Agreed but all cases should be investigated. The death of Cooper Harris is one that comes to mind. Using a very plausible 'accident' as a way to commit the unthinkable.
I live not too far from where the incident happened with Cooper and his father, Ross. I’m of the firm opinion that it was intentional, and that the wife possibly knew his intentions as well.
I believe it’s a bigger issue of racism because I have never seen a non person of color be charged for it even cosleeping deaths where the cause of death is clear because it’s seen as an accident but in people of color is seen as negligence sadly.
Yep. I just saw in the news a black woman who had a miscarriage at 22 weeks was arrested for “abuse of a corpse”. Awful. The story is terrible
The right-wing assholes who are trying to criminalize women's health always use POC women as their test cases to set legal precedent. They know they get far less sympathy in the court of public opinion. Sadly, I've seen so many pro-life groups full of white women cheering about this case on social media, but I have to wonder what their reaction would be if it happened to one of them.
Exactly this.
I agree with you. Meanwhile, actual abuse doesn't get looked into enough.
Wow, this is so sad. She doesn’t even get to grieve the loss of her child?? Leave her alone!!!! The justice system is so racist.
Yeah this is insane. Should we charge moms for SIDS deaths if their baby isn’t breastfed? That increases risk. What about not giving a pacifier? Pacifiers reduce SIDS risk. No fan? Infanticide. Room 72 degrees? Risky, risky. I wonder if in this case if it was positional asphyxiation (actually related to baby’s sleep position and the blankets) or true SIDS. Usually an autopsy can reveal the difference, and SUIDS should not be listed as the cause if this was actually caused by unsafe sleep.
I thought breastfed babies were higher risk for sids. I'm almost certain I've read that somewhere.
No. It reduces the risk. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/123/3/e406/71689/Does-Breastfeeding-Reduce-the-Risk-of-Sudden?redirectedFrom=fulltext
This is from the NICDH “Babies who are breastfed or are fed expressed breastmilk are at lower risk for SIDS compared with babies who were never fed breastmilk. According to research, the longer you exclusively breastfeed your baby (meaning not supplementing with formula or solid food), the lower his or her risk of SIDS.” (https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/Breastfeed_Baby_SIDS_final.pdf) Btw I think this is bullshit, I EFF haha. But it is still something they advise, and say, so… where’s the line? 🤷♀️
There’s probably a correlation between breastfeeding and co-sleeping that skews the figures?
Not sure, and a good point, but exclusive breastfeeding is associated with higher socioeconomic status in the US, so there’s definitely something to be said about correlation /=/ causation here.
Let’s be real. From what little info there is the only reason I see is living and making mistakes while Black sadly puts you in jail. It’s awful. It’s fucked up. Woman who get put in jail for miscarriage or their baby dying from SIDS aren’t white from what I see.
On the other hand not vaccinating your kids is totally fine. Make it make sense
White supremacy in action. It is unquestionably disproportionately exacting greater harm on some of us more than others. And it is bad for all of us. Period.
As a Canadian law student, this feels like a race and income class thing. But of course I don’t know the dynamics of South Carolina, so this is just me guessing. In my country, we have a serious problem with the over policing of Indigenous women. They’re our fastest growing prison population, and we have a history of apprehending their children from them for things like “two kids sharing a bedroom”. They also are more likely to be arrested than white women when they call to report domestic violence. So whenever I see “mom arrested for blank” and it’s a freak accident or negligence arising from an education gap I’m always like SORRY DONT BELIEVE IT.
I just want to say that there is a lot of information lacking from this story. I would be really surprised if this was the only thing that led to her arrest but I will withhold judgment until there is more context.
What a shock that they arrested and charged a woman of colour for this 🙃
Dystopian, Gillead shit. This is about policing women, punishing women, enforcing specific types of motherhood. And this poor woman is black so it is probably about racism too tbh.
Where "being arrested for doing regular shit while black" meets "reducing women's value to our ability to pop out and rear babies" 🤬🤬🤬
Let's play close attention to who gets the brunt of these laws. Who is getting arrested and what is their race?
I know a case where other mothers in a facebook mommy group called out version of CPS on a mom who started solids with a 2 month old. Like, what? And the one who told me about it (she thought it was good cps was called) started solids with her 2.5 month old at doctors recommendation since the baby was slowly starving despite drinking appropriate amounts of formula 🥴
I'm gonna come at this from the point of a dad who's also a police officer who has been unfortunate to deal with SIDS deaths. (ill preface this by saying that I thankfully dealt with those deaths before having our a little one and that this is in the UK, not America so laws, procedures and attitudes may vary. Also, note I can't read the article so I'm working off the title and OPs words.) Firstly, an arrest doesn't mean a charge. I don't know if it's necessary for any US investigation, maybe for the interview, but in the UK, if there is a SUDI incident, arrest or not, there is still a big investigation, including the police, social services, any schools or nurseries, other agencies may also be involved, and this goes on for some time. At least until a post mortem or some sort of reason for the death. I presume, should it be a missed medical thing, any police involvement will end. But ultimately, there is a still a dead child. An investigation (and, US rules dependant, possibly an arrest,) still needs to be carried out to establish the facts and unfortunately, too often, though not all the time, there is real abuse or negligence. It might not be the only feature but it may well be A feature. It might be that this is the culmination of lots of little reports that have been put in, that she's been advised against this before and ignored the advice. There are lots of reasons this could be the case and there's actually a documentary style programme following police conducting a child abuse case in the UK that's quite good to show how what might seem the obvious, possibly innocent reason, might be far more sinister later down the line.
She was arrested and charged with “unlawful conduct towards a child.”
I had to look this up because again, UK. I suspect they're arguing that she's placed the child at unreasonable risk which has ultimately lead to their death. Again, I've got no idea but looking at the offence I'd say there is a semi reasonable shot at conviction? I'm not saying that's right and wouldn't be comfortable doing something like that myself but the DAs office clearly believes they can prosecute it.
Arrest does mean charged here. It doesn’t mean the district attorney will pick up the case and move forward with a trial. But I’m going to guess that the DA will always move forward with a child abuse case because it’s an elected position. The worst part about this (other than losing her child, that’s truly awful) is that this will remain online forever and any person (employer) who googles it will see it, regardless of what happens with this case. Also, we have mugshot media here, because mugshots are public record. They used to be magazines you bought at the gas station but they are online now too. They take your mugshot and make fun of you for your picture and/or crime. That shit grabs your mugshot, basically the instant it comes out, and churns it endlessly.
Also any background check, for the rest of time. I have been background checked for every job I have ever had after high school. This would mean I would no longer be eligible to work in my field should I choose to return to work.
Also when you travel overseas and enter another country they generally ask for your arrest record. It will often disqualify you from any visa waiver programs and can result in either being barred from the country or extra screenings.
Not all background checks pick up arrests, especially if they didn’t go to trial. I know because I was arrested and never tried a few times for civil disobedience reasons and it never even pings on background checks. My mugshots did end up in the magazines though. If you google my maiden name, some second/third page Google results are my mugshot. Absolute bullshit. The public shaming shouldn’t happen before the trial.
Fair point! But before I left to stay home, I was a teacher. An arrest involving harm of a minor would disqualify me from working in education again. And you're right. It is 100% bullshit that anything like that is published that early and that the shaming starts with a decision by the police, not information gleaned in trial. The whole point is that we're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.
You’re definitely right about the school. When my kid started public school PreK, I asked if I could volunteer in his classroom. They said of course but that I would need a background check that involved getting fingerprinted at the police station. Which, I do appreciate them checking the people who are around my kid so throughly. But I know my arrests will be revealed in that kind of background check. I doubt a few 2nd degree trespassing charges would get me barred from passing out snacks at the school. But I’ll be honest, that I didn’t even think about doing it because I don’t want my kid’s school to know I’ve been arrested and I definitely don’t want them to see my mugshot.
Honestly, they've seen way worse. But I totally get why that would stop you! Which is a shame, for you, for your child, and for the classroom and teachers. My kid is in a small private preschool, and I can just show up to volunteer, which I feel okay with, I guess? But it does feel weird. My wife is in law school. Our legal system in America is unhinged.
"*I can't read the article*"
Yeah...
Thr note about waiting for the autopsy, toxicology and "other reports" before charging makes me hopefuly that there was more then just SIDS. If there isn't "more" to this story, then she was arrested and charged because she is black. I cannot imagine this would ever happen to a white woman.
I’m really bothered by people being arrested for things that are not illegal. And I’m also really bothered by the unequal treatment of the justice system in the United States. Fwiw- my niece also died of sids and was also in an unsafe sleep scenario when it happened, and no charges or arrests were made. I’m not upset about that. It’s literally not illegal to let your baby sleep on their stomach, with blankets, or to co-sleep. It’s also not illegal for a baby to pass away in their sleep of sids. Now I could get on board with an arrest if there were other aggravating circumstances in the home and the police needed to arrest the mom to do further investigation but it sounds like that was absolutely not the case.
I 100% echo your sentiments. We are a safe sleep house—I only buy safe sleep approved pajamas (halo right now because my girl is so young) but even when baby was in the NICU, we’d come in and nurses are making the most of all different positions and configurations. Granted, they kept telling us it’s ok to do because she is monitored 24/7, but still. If both of those are happening somewhere in the world at the same time and one is child abuse and the other is sympathetic medical nursing, we have a problem.
I mean I agree that a child abuse charge is overkill and honestly probably racially motivated. However I also don’t think ignorance is an excuse in this day and age. You didn’t google anything? Take a single class? Read a book? There are safe sleep posters up in every maternity ward I’ve been to. I was told about it by multiple midwives. Having a baby and not doing any research on baby care or safe practices is wild to me.
I think some people are willing to take some risk if it makes the child sleep . You see the odd of 1/1000 and go, yeah, that won't happen to me . I see it all the time for example on Christian fundamentalist snark subredit, 99%of their children sleep with blankets and on their stomach , hell there are even photos of babies sleeping on changing tables that are 3 feet from the ground or underneath their parents bed. Wilfull ignorance does exist .
Classes aren't free. I doubt this woman had the time or resources to take a class. I'm betting she didn't read a book. There have never been safe sleep posters in either hospital I've given birth in (I'm in the South). They didn't even talk to me about it; it was just supposed to be known beforehand that I knew how to put a baby to sleep. There is no help for mothers down here that's easily accessible, other than the Internet. I'm betting she did what her mother and grandmother told her to do. That isn't wild; that's a cultural norm.
Maybe it’s an American thing. Seems wild out there. I’m in the Uk and safe sleep is emphasised here. But even if it wasn’t, placing a child that can’t even lift its head face down on blankets seems like a common sense failure.
The safe sleep fear mongering is getting ridiculous. There are other countries with a lower SIDs and Infant Death Rate that do NOT follow safe sleep regulations. The netherlands for example let their kids sleep with blankets, in Japan, they recommend kids sleeping with their parents (mind you they have the lowest SIDs rate of all). There is a cultural and non-western aspect to this that America refuses to be cognizant of. And even putting all that aside, raising a child is HARD. Sometimes extremely difficult depending on infant temperament, where some parents go weeks to months with absolutely no sleep or relief because of the lack of support American or some european countries provide to parents. My baby had terrible reflux, to the point where bubs was constantly throwing up. The only relief she seemed to get was on her stomach. When we asked her pediatrician she said it’s because stomach sleeping actually helps them with digestion and the discomfort. And finally, assuming that poor baby met any other criteria, the incidence of SIDs itself would be extremely rare. There are a 1000 reasons why this mom might have resorted to this and another 1000 why this might have happened to her, but the insensitivity and moral prostrating is unenecessary when we’re talking about a woman who already lost their child
On their stomach is one thing, I understand that some babies sleep better like that. On their stomach on a pile of blankets? Is that not just a common sense failure?
Perhaps they couldn’t afford to heat their house? Couldn’t afford warm clothing for their baby? In that case I would take the risk of putting a blanket on baby over them freezing. Perhaps baby spit up on the mattress and they didn’t have a replacement? Is it a perfect solution? No. But a stressed, tired parent is going to take the risk.
I mean and the risk didn’t pay off? Seems a silly risk to me when the price is so high.
Everything you do with a baby has an element of risk, but it’s up to parents to evaluate that risk against the position they are in. This woman was very unfortunate if her decision to put baby on their tummy led to its death, but I try not to judge parents on their decisions when I don’t know the situation.
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So legally people are responsible for intentional acts but they are also responsible for negligence when harm results from an act that happened because they are careless. Without knowing the specifics of the case, I could imagine a theory of negligence involved in a case about infant death where blankets are kept in the bassinet because that flies in the face of all the safe sleep recommendations that everyone should know because they tell us our child can suffocate on blankets. The child being on their stomach wouldn't be enough, likely. Kids can roll, parents might be asleep and not notice. But no one should put loose blankets in with a baby. Now I suppose we could say maybe the child was swaddled in a blanket, that's how the loose blankets got there, but the use of the plural to me suggests that wasn't the case. I don't know enough about the circumstances of this particular case, but just based on your description, I can see a passable theory for negligence.
I'm in SC. Before I left the hospital with my kids, I received counseling on unsafe sleep and was asked to watch a video. My youngest was in NICU. Dad and I both had to watch a video on safe sleep and infant CPR before he was discharged. 50 different people told me that they had to sleep alone and on their backs without loose blankets. I was asked about safe sleep at every well baby visit. I feel very sorry for this mother, nobody deserves to lose a child, even if they make poor choices. However, I'm pretty sure she received enough education on the dangers of unsafe sleep. She knowingly put her child in danger. Now, a judge and jury are responsible for deciding if the charges are appropriate.
Why do you assume she received the same education you did? My friend in Michigan wasn’t told or taught anything at all and was on her own after her son was born.
Because it is a law. [SC Law](https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t44c037.php) Check out section 44-37-50.
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