Strollerderby : child neglect

City's 5th Co-Sleeping Death in 10 Weeks Reported

Madeline Holler — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:29:00 GMT

Milwaukee authorities are blaming the death of yet another baby on co-sleeping. In 10 weeks, five babies have died during the night while sleeping out of a crib.

Meekel McCleave was just two months old when her mother, who had also co-slept with her other children, woke up and found the small newborn face down. Public health officials are once again decrying the practice of co-sleeping, precisely because of outcomes like this.

The death of these five babies is a complete tragedy -- sad, heartbreaking and avoidable. But what gets me, an experienced co-sleeper, is that co-sleeping is taking the blame and getting the headlines in these deaths. But a closer look sheds a little more light.

In Meekel's case, a medical examiner's report indicates the baby was found face-down on an adult-size pillow. That's hardly safe co-sleeping. And face down? The baby was two months old. What two month old can roll over? Just based on the information in the article, there was a lot going wrong in that family bed, though Meekel's mom disputes the pillow situation.

What about the other four cases? Here, read for yourself:

On March 8, 6-day old Ceianna Buchanan died while sleeping on a couch with her mother. The mother admitted to police she got drunk the night before.

On April 5, 3-month old Kymarius Hunt died sleeping on a couch with his grandmother. She later admitted to drinking 8 beers.

On April 19, 2-month old Tyler Winston died sharing a bed with his mother.

On April 25, 6-week old Demetrius Kimble died sleeping in bed with both parents. His mother admitted to drinking prior to falling asleep.

So, drunk, drunk, unknown and drunk.

Was co-sleeping the problem in any or all of these cases? Or was it booze and/or unsafe situations.

For many families, co-sleeping is the one way everybody gets sleep. And done safely, it's safe! But what is safe co-sleeping? For one, no drugs or drinking. For another, no babies on or near pillows. And also, don't sleep with babies on a couch or in chairs. How about an information campaign about that, instead of just saying, "no, don't do it"?

I mean, my motive isn't just to defend the practice of co-sleeping. I don't want to learn of any more kids dying as a result of some stupid form of it.

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Photo: Todaystmj4.com

Babysitter Sleeps While Kid Plays Among the Alligators

JeanneSager — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:36:00 GMT

Your babysitter was never this bad - trust me.

A Florida sitter fell asleep on the toilet while her two-year-old charge went out and wandered around in an alligator-infested canal.

According to some reports, the boy was wearing nothing but a shirt and covered in feces when he was spotted and promptly rescued. When police got to the house, they say they found his babysitter on the toilet - passed out - and a bottle of oxycodone. The sitter, Brandy Albright, was woken up by police and placed under arrest for child endangerment, while the boy has been returned to his mom.

Unless you live in Florida or another coastal area of the country, you likely don't have to worry that your kid is going to be out playing with the alligators when you aren't home. But does a sitter really have to be told not to take drugs while they're watching your kid? There's a warning about not operating heavy machinery while taking these drugs on that bottle for a reason.

Just remember this one the next time you want to complain about your sitter. At least he or she remains upright throughout the day. If not, it's time you get yourself a new sitter!

Image: APP

Dad Abused Kids For Finding His Porn

Kate Tuttle — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:31:00 GMT

In a bizarre, sad case out of Tampa, police say that a father of three kids, aged eight, nine and ten, physically abused them to teach them a lesson for various infractions, including finding his hidden porn stash. (As one of my colleagues points out, isn't finding your father's porn punishment in itself?) In addition to beating his children, Moslim Al-Assadi is accused of holding his daughter's head under water as she struggled to breathe.

Local police have long known about the family, but their ability to respond was hampered by conflicting stories told by the children themselves, who have shown a pattern familiar to psychologists but frustrating for law enforcement: as frightened and scarred as they are by the abuse, the children defend their father.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

Deputies went to Oak Grove Elementary School to interview the children, who again spoke of spankings, slappings and the oldest daughter's submersion.

"She said that she recalls telling someone about this before but told them she was lying because she (did) not want her father taken away," police wrote. "She said she knows what he did was wrong. He told her he loved her no matter what she did."

Such protection by children, even in the face of abuse, isn't uncommon, said one psychologist.

"Children who have experienced abuse have a heightened need for the comfort and security" that parents can provide, said Lauren Fasig, the director of research at the University of Florida's Fredric G. Levin College of Law Center on Children and Families. "This need may outweigh the perceived threat."

It's not surprising that these three children would lie to protect their father -- their mother, Arlene Heintzelman, with whom they have only supervised visits, has also been accused of neglect, including an instance in which two of the kids fell from a second-story window. Left to navigate life without even one stable, caring parent, they are clearly doing the best they can. Let's hope the authorities are able to help them find the peace, security and love they deserve.

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Update: Little Boy Dies of Untreated Cancer

Shannon LC Cate — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:32:00 GMT

Willie Robinson died last year of untreated Hodgkins Lymphoma. When the coroner discovered the disease, he ruled the death a homicide due to Willie's parents' negligence. Those parents, William Robinson Senior (Willie was his namesake) and Monica Hussing were taken into custody yesterday and are now being held on $150,000 bond (each) in the Cuyahoga County jail. They have pled not guilty to involuntary manslaughter, endangering children and felonious assault.

The only excuse the media has reported so far from these parents is that they "couldn't afford" to take Willie to the doctor. It's also noted in many of the stories about the case that they had a dog treated for fleas at some expense during the time Willie was suffering.

Apparently, since Willie's death the family has been under the surveillance of Children and Family Services and has been cooperative--getting their other children up to date on medical care and getting them into school.. (This conflicts with the first story I saw on the case that suggested that social workers had been involved with the family prior to Willie's death.) There is still also no word on why the other five children in this family have not been in school.

I find the case puzzling, because although today's story mentions that the parents are not married, it does seem that they are a solid family unit, living together and obviously, having many children together. There is no explanation about the children not being in school (they don't seem to be a homeschooling family) or why they haven't gone to the doctor (they don't seem to be part of a religious tradition that refuses medical care). Beyond the simple statement about not being able to afford it, there's no reason given.

I would speculate that the mother was depressed but after six kids, you'd think someone would have figured that out before now. And given the father's presence, why didn't he do something? It's such a sad story, I do hope we get some answers as the case unfolds, if only to understand what Willie went through and make sure his siblings have a better experience from now on.

The parents will back in court on 30 March. Perhaps we'll hear more after that.

Child Left Overnight in Daycare Van

Kate Tuttle — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Something's going wrong in Milwaukee: in two separate incidents, two six-year-old boys were left in daycare vans that were meant to transport them home. Both boys had fallen asleep and were not seen by the van drivers.

In one case, the boy's mother was out of town; he was being dropped off with two of his siblings into the care of someone else -- someone who apparently had no idea how many children they were meant to care for. The boy slept in the van Friday night, unseen and unclaimed until his mother came back Saturday morning and began searching for him.

The other case involved a boy whose family only took "an hour or two" to begin looking for him. Both cases are being investigated, but it's hard to know how much more the police will find beyond the simple tragedy of neglect. It's a miracle the boy left overnight was happy and healthy when found; Wisconsin nights can get cold in February.

As much as I read these stories as horrible examples of slack parenting, I remember an ex-boyfriend whose mother had six kids, and was always leaving one behind when the family stopped at gas stations on long car trips. It got me thinking: what does it take to forget about a child?

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They Say: Abuse Changes a Child's Brain

Kate Tuttle — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:26:00 GMT

Researchers who had previously studied the relationships between stress responses and maternal nurturing in animals have taken their work into a new arena, looking at how human brains are affected, in adulthood, by abuse and neglect suffered in childhood. The study, carried out at McGill University in Montreal, is very small (it compared the brains of 12 suicide victims who had been abused to 12 suicide victims who had not been, against a control group of 12 non-suicide brains) but, many in the field agree, could lead to larger-scale research into how childhood trauma can cause lifelong damage to a person's ability to handle stress.

Like so many studies of how human beings work, this one seems to only confirm the obvious: who among us wouldn't instinctively know that a terrible childhood leaves permanent scars? And yet it goes further than that -- if a biological brain difference is found, therapies could be developed that would offer some hope of healing those previously unhealable wounds. And just as the researchers' previous work had looked at the multi-generational effect of both good and bad animal parenting, perhaps their ultimate goal would be to figure out how to end the cycle of bad human parenting, one formerly abused or neglected child at a time.

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Government Seizes Newborn from Mentally Disabled Mom 22 Hours After Birth

JeanneSager — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:29:00 GMT

I'd like to say it was the unthinkable that happened to Barbara Gamble this week. Canadian authorities seized her sixth child just 22 hours after the little girl, Savannah Nicole Elizabeth, was born. It was just what Gamble and boyfriend Vince Kinney feared would happen.

In the weeks since first sharing their plight with a reporter from the Vancouver Sun, Gamble and Kinney have been the hot topic in Canada. They've become the poster children as much for poverty as for the rights of the disabled. The Canadian government has yet to allow the British Columbia residents to take home one of their children - because Gamble has an IQ that's classified her as "mentally handicapped." She's been quite literally referred to as "too stupid to parent."

She may never be able to take proper care of her children, according to some psychiatrists called in to evaluate her, and officials have said it would cost as much as $6,400 (Canadian) to pay for 10 hours a week of in-home support for Gamble during the first three months of Savannah's life. Gamble lives off government assistance herself, although Kinney (who has an IQ in "normal" range) works as a security guard. Both regularly rack up bills that far exceed the money coming in, and welfare officials have questioned the couple's understanding of their limitations.

Although my initial reaction was to let them take their kid home and just keep a close eye on the situation, a look at a mother in a similiar situation who spoke out in support of Gamble last week gave me a greater appreciation for the government's case. Equating the moms' intelligence to that of a 12-year-old, I realized, leaving a baby with a 12-year-old every day for the rest of his/her life would be grounds for child endangerment or child neglect here in America. A wait-and-see attitude on behalf of the Canadian government in this situation would be tantamount to turning a blind eye to possible child abuse.

Still, I've been holding out hope that before Savannah's birth and subsequent seizure, someone would have pitched in to offer some help for these parents. That someone would step in and work with Gamble to help her understand why having child after child is not the answer. Even a 12-year-old can be taught that in life there are rights and there are privileges. Barbara Gamble has a right to make decisions about her own womb. But parenting is still a privilege. The children she's already delivered are alive - somewhere - they should be the focus of her efforts to be a parent, a chance to show what she can do. Savannah is here now too, and if Gamble wants a chance to be her mom, she needs to put her first.

Image: Vancouver Sun

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Mom Convicted for Leaving Toddler Alone for Weekend

Jen Chaney — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:33:00 GMT

Stupid parents are found guilty of the darndest things.

British mom Kelly Tollerton was convicted yesterday of child neglect for leaving her two-year-old son by himself for a weekend while she went to hang out with her boyfriend. The incident occurred in 2006, and the child was discovered after Tollerton's flat flooded while she was gone. The boy was found sitting in inches of water in the kitchen, where he was stuck behind a baby gate, forced to use dirty laundry for a bed and left to eat food off of plates on the floor.

Tollerton swears she asked a friend to look after him. Clearly that didn't happen. She'll be sentenced later this month.

If I shake my head really hard, forcing the molecules in my brain to somehow reorganize themselves, I still can't fathom how this woman thought it was okay to leave her kid in the kitchen and go on her merry way, even if she assumed her friend was coming later. Never mind that her son barely had food to eat or anyone to change his diapers. There is a lot of dangerous stuff going on in a kitchen. He could have ingested weird cleaning agents, or grabbed a knife, or jammed his hand onto a hot burner. Gives me the shivers to even consider how scared that poor kid must have been.

Presumably this won't ever happen to him again; he is now in the care of foster parents.

Photo: BBC.com

They Say: Co-Sleeping Kills Kids

Madeline Holler — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:03:00 GMT

Officials in Los Angeles County are warning parents that co-sleeping is a "potentially lethal act."

So are car-riding, grape-eating and breathing the county's lead-rich air, but no mention of those in the same report, which was issued by the Los Angeles County Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect.

The report claimed that 44 children died from co-sleeping in the county in 2006, a 76 percent increase over the previous year. The defined co-sleeping as the practice of the sleeping in the same bed, couch or chair with an infant.

Unfortunately, those statistics don't tell us exactly how many of those deaths were in a couch or chair -- something even ardent supporters of co-sleeping agree is super risky. They also don't tell us how many of those involved a co-sleeping adult who had gone to bed drunk or on drugs.

I don't think co-sleeping is for everyone, but it was definitely for me and my babies. We were smart about it -- daddy slept elsewhere after a night of heavy drinking, for example. But we also didn't use any of the contraptions out there -- sidecar, crib-on-a-bed, stuff like that. Just cut back on bedding and pillows, that's all.

What's got me extra bugged about this report, is the agency it comes out of. The Council on Child Abuse and Neglect? Who knew I we'd fall in the demographic for THAT?

So what do you think about co-sleeping? Did you do it? Was it scary? Could you have survived without it?

Photo: babyart.org

Cuts Through Corrugated Cardboard and Foreskin

makeitadouble — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Whether you call it felony child abuse, a gross misinterpretation of the Hebrew Covenant of Circumcision or a father’s foreword thinking to reduce his son’s risk of contracting the HIV virus by 50% while increasing his need for a tetanus shot by 100%, a North Carolina Man has been accused of circumcising his sons with a utility knife.

Caldwell County Police are investigating John Eric Marlowe on possible charges of felony child abuse for removing the foreskin of two of his son’s with a Stanley Retractable sometime between 2005 and 2006. Marlowe, who is currently serving a 105 day prison sentence for assault on a female and child neglect, has a history of child neglect most recently by going to Myrtle Beach with one of his two wives and leaving his 11 children home without adult supervision.

Besides the chutzpah this sterilization candidate demonstrated in mutilating his sons with a box cutter, I was struck by the uncomfortable parallels between his actions and the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. Bear with me here. From the article, “Investigators learned from Marlowe’s two wives that Marlowe circumcised two of his sons eight days after they were born with a utility knife”

From the Book of Genesis, “…Throughout all generations, every male shall be circumcised when he is eight days old.” Not to mention that it also states that the infant's father is commanded to perform the circumcision himself.

Coincidence? Probably, but I’ve seen lawyers invoke Freedom of Religion for less. Personally, I’d go after Home Depot as an accomplice for encouraging such behavior with their slogan, “You can do it. We can help."

The important thing is that medically the children are fine and that they won’t experience a reduction in sexual pleasure when they’re older.

Colorado Mom Found Guilty of Child Neglect in Son's Death

Kelly Mills — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 19:43:00 GMT

In a high-profile case, Molly Midyette was quickly found guilty of child neglect by a Boulder jury following the 2006 death of her 10-week-old son. Her husband, Alex Midyette, son of a rich Colorado property holder, will go to trial next month for inflicting injuries that resulted in the death of Jason Midyette. When Jason was rushed to the hospital with severe brain injuries, physicians found evidence of older injuries and even healing broken bones. However, over the course of six well-baby visits the baby's pediatrician had never documented any broken bones, injuries, or even bruises, and Molly says she had no idea her infant was hurt at all.

While the well-known defense team argued that Molly had no knowledge of any injuries and had simply relied on the advice of her child's doctor, who never found anything amiss, the prosecution called witnesses to show that Jason's injuries were "as severe as one can get and still be alive" and that many were classic child abuse injuries, such as a torn frenulum, which can be caused by jamming a bottle too hard into an infant's mouth, and broken ribs from possible violent shaking. His death, however, was likely caused by a blow to the head. The prosecution also brought testimony that doctors miss up to a third of child abuse injuries in regular check-ups, and that Molly was ambivalent about motherhood, even leaving out any mention of her baby in an e-mail to an ex-boyfriend, and saying that her c-section scar was due to a car accident. She also refused to agree to testify against her husband.

It's in many ways a big-deal case because the folks involved have money and connections, and of course I wouldn't put money on Alex Midyette's odds of walking when he goes to trial. But it's an interesting case, in that Midyette was convicted of failing to protect her son from his own father. Was she completely in the dark about any abuse? Trapped and afraid in her marriage? Complicit and with mixed feelings about being a mom at all? The jury seems to have found the latter to be the most likely explanation of all.

Photo: Joshua Lawton/AP pool

Dad Plays Poker While Kids Wait in the Car

Karen Murphy — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:05:00 GMT

Sometimes people do things and you want to just shake them and yell, "What were you thinking??!" Take the case of Terrence Davis, for instance, who apparently had a need to play poker so urgent that he left his two kids, ages 3 and 7, out in his running car while he played a quick 4 or 5 hands. How long does it take to play a hand of poler, anyway? He claims he was only in there playing for 15 minutes, but I suspect it might have been a bit longer. A passerby noticed the kids alone in a running car, the police were called, and now Mr. Davis has been charged with child neglect.

Which probably someone could make a case against my mom for: in elementary school my brother and I were frequently left alone in the car in a parking lot while our teacher-mom attended meetings with the other teacher-people. We'd hang in the car, crank the windows up and down, push all six buttons on the radio, and honk the horn a lot, especially if anyone was sighted. Child neglect? In today's parlance, yes. In the 70's? I guess not! Besides, we were more like ages 8 and 10, a far cry from 3 and 7.

I still don't know if we're in actuality any less safe than we were as a society 30 years ago or if the sense of being less safe is due to enhanced media exposure of the few bad events that do occur, but I do know this: with my children I'm unwilling to take that chance. I don't leave my kids alone in parking lots.

Taiwanese Agency Quantifies the Amount of Love Kids Need

Patti — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:12:00 GMT

Finally, someone's done a study that produces news I can use. Taiwan's Child Welfare League Foundation has issued guidelines to provide children with the love and attention they need to thrive: kids need thirty minutes a day spent with their parents, at least three minutes of hugging and three of listening, and to be praised three times, and to be able to access a responsible adult within three minutes if necessary. I suspected I was overdoing it, and this confirms it.

No, seriously though. Taiwan's had some pretty serious problems with neglect and abuse of minors, and the CWLF aims to change that. They've laid out three core pursuits: survival, health, and safety, and the above "rules of three" are meant to inspire parents and caregivers to strive to achieve those pursuits. And other Taiwanese organizations and political parties are also mobilizing to turn the tides back in favor of their children. May it bring positive and lasting change for the country.

Now, set your timers for three minutes and go squeeze a kid, why don't you.