Tragedy struck a family from Chisinau. A four-month baby sleeping in the same bed with his parents was found dead in the morning, lying on his belly. Doctors say at the age of four months the children start to turn from the back to the belly, but cannot return to the initial position.
Petru Cravet, spokesman for the National Emergency Medicine Center, has told IPN that the child’s mother confessed that before going to sleep, she put the baby between her and her husband and fell asleep. When she woke up, she found him dead. The ambulance doctors could do nothing for the child.
Ala Curteanu, head of the scientific perinatology laboratory of the Mother and Child Center, said the parents make a mistake when they lay the children with them in the bed as there is a risk that they will be asphyxiated. Their own bed is the safest place for the children. The mattresses should be hard, adjusted to the bed’s dimensions. During the first six months of life, the babies should not sleep on a pillow and soft covers or mattresses.
According to Ala Curteanu, the parents take the babies with them in bed for various reasons. Some of them do not have a bed for babies. An adult while sleeping can turn over the child without feeling this, or can put the hand over him, suffocating him this way. When the mother is tired and breastfeeds the child lying on the bed, she may fall asleep and endanger thus his life.
The Health Ministry does not have statistics as regards the number of children who suffocated when sleeping.
