Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Support Group
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is any sudden and unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant aged one month to one year. SIDS is responsible for roughly 50 deaths per 100,000 births in the US.
We have ALL asked the question "Could I have done something to prevent this?" and have all come to the same conclusion .. as resounding No. However .. it is our sworn duty as parents to do everything within our power to protect the lives entrusted to us and if that means using a piece of technology (apnea/sleep monitors) to do so and it helps us sleep at night with the knowledge that we did our best and the child dies anyway, then so be it .. we did all that we knew to do. Regardless of the research, which I'm not discounting by the way, I feel it is prudent to monitor our children as much as feasible in that time of their lives when they are most vulnerable. Apnea monitors are, what? a couple hundred bucks? That's not too bad for a few nights of sound sleep especially given that they can be reused. Hell, if money's that tight, let me know and I'll buy you one myself. Will it save your rainbow baby in the event of yet another bout of SIDS? Apparently the research says No. But when I'm sitting up with Willow on those long, cold nights at 4 AM bleary-eyed scared to death that this one will die, too, is it worth it? You're damned right, it is. I like my sleep and I like a smiling Willow.
Fact is, gentlemen (if there are any on here) it is our jobs to give our ladies the tools, means, and support to care for them and their children in the best way possible. We've been doing that for millenia. If that means a .45 by the bed, a stone castle to sleep in, a tank to drive to town in, or an automated gadget to monitor your child, then, by all means, do it. That's what we do .. we protect, provide, build, and kill to see to it that our partners and our proginy are safe, fed, warm, and comfortable. And when we have done all that we can and they are not one of those things, we provide the rock that they can lean on to get their bearings to try again.
2. She stops moving
3. She begins turning blue
4. Then the machine goes off
5. I suction her airway
6. Then she starts moving and the numbers on the monitor begin going up and the monitor goes silent after she comes back.
This is a high end hospital grade monitor in a level 2 NICU Children's hospital. Not that it's delayed, it's that SIDS happens that fast and I believe some babies are simply at more risk because all babies learn at different rates. Learning to breath, swallow, cough, and eat are all new. Forgetting one can cost a baby their life and not all babies have it down perfectly. I truly believe a baby can be saved from SIDS with extremely close monitoring.