Baby Suffocation Deaths From Co-Sleeping Rise

Sam and Maura Hanke were over the moon when they welcomed their first child, Charlie, into the world in 2010. They quickly settled into life with the healthy newborn and loved the joys and challenges that came with realizing their dream of becoming parents.

One night when he was 3 weeks old, Charlie was fussier than normal and was up late into the night, struggling to sleep. Since Maura wasbreastfeeding, Sam offered to hold him so his wife could get some rest. The new father sat down on the couch to watch television and fell asleep with Charlie lying on his chest.

“When I woke up, he was gone,” Hanke said. “I would do everything in my power to have another day with him.”

Charlie was a victim of an unsafe sleep environment. About 3,500 infants die every year in the U.S. from sleep-related deaths. But while the number of babies that die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has been falling, the number of babies dying from accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed skyrocketed 184% from 1999 to 2015, according to new statistics released Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

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