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Babies are dying while sleeping with parents

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By Joanne Huist Smith, Staff Writer Updated 11:05 PM Saturday, July 10, 2010

Nearly one baby dies every month in the Dayton area due to unsafe sleep practices and health officials are concerned because the numbers are not decreasing despite education efforts.

In Montgomery County alone, 73 children died due to sleep-related suffocation between 1997 and 2008.

“We’re still seeing a significant number of deaths due to co-sleeping — moms and dads on a couch, in a bed with their children,” said Ken Betz, director of the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office and the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory. “Children are needlessly dying because they’re sleeping in the wrong environment.”

Five-month-old Keandra Cantrell of Piqua died in 2008 after her mother placed the infant in bed with her following a night of partying. Tiffani Cantrell, 24, rolled over on her daughter while she slept. Cantrell is now serving a three-year sentence for child endangering at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.

“What does it take to wake people up and not endanger the lives of their children,” said Miami County Health Commissioner James D. Luken. “For those folks who won’t listen, we think prosecution is the answer. Maybe it will save a few more lives.”

A county Child Fatality Review Board investigates the every death of a child younger than 18, whether the death from natural causes, risky behavior or the result of a crime.

The investigators are looking for trends in preventable deaths.

Ohio’s infant mortality rate of 7.7 per 1,000 births ranks eighth-worst among the 50 states, according to the 2009 Ohio Child Fatality Review report.

Public Health Dayton and Montgomery County launched the ABC’s of Safe Sleep public awareness campaign in 2007 using billboards, radio spots, brochures, even onesies carrying the message, “I sleep safest: Alone, on my back in a crib.”

Now, billboards are going back up to warn parents and caregivers.

“Moms and dads don’t have a motive of killing their kids. They just don’t think it through,” Betz said.

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