Ohio mother charged after infant’s co-sleeping death
CINCINNATI – Prosecutors in Ohio filed criminal charges against a mother after they said co-sleeping led to her baby’s death.
A grand jury indicted Brooke Hunter on charges of involuntary manslaughter and endangering children after she had a second child die as a result of co-sleeping, WCPO reported.
Investigators told WKRC that Hunter had lost another infant to co-sleeping just over a year ago, before losing a second child in June. After the first child died, investigators said that Hunter was warned about the dangers of co-sleeping.
Co-sleeping is a term for when parents share a bed with their child. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants be put to sleep on their backs on flat, noninclined surfaces without soft bedding. In a June report, the AAP found that the risk of sleep-related deaths rises 5-10 times when an infant under 4 months of age is sharing a sleeping surface.
A study published in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in 2018 found that 3,500 sleep-related deaths were reported in the United States among infants each year, and that the number of parents reporting they shared a bed with their child climbed. In 2015, 61.4% of parents across 14 states who responded to the survey said that they co-slept with their infant.
AAP recommends parents sleep in the same room, but not in the same bed, as their infant, preferably for the first 6 months.
Because Hunter had received a warning, prosecutors said they considered the death of her 6-week-old baby a homicide, WCPO reported.
