“You have to put your baby in a safe sleep environment,” says William Pellan of the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner’s Office.
BY ANDREW CAPLAN
NNB Student Reporter
LARGO – An exhausted mother crawls out of bed in the middle of the night to comfort her screaming newborn.
She cradles the infant in her arms, bottle in hand, until the baby is quietly sucking down the formula. For just a moment, they lie down.
An hour later, the mother wakes up with a start. Her baby is dead.
Between 2005 and 2013, 90 infants in Pinellas and Pasco counties died while sleeping in bed with an adult, according to the District 6 Medical Examiner’s Office. They died because an adult rolled over on top of them or because their faces were pressed against a soft surface.
Over the same period, 45 more infants died while sleeping alone on their stomachs.
In those 135 cases, the medical examiner’s staff ruled that 113 were caused by asphyxia, or lack of oxygen.
Preventing these deaths is a passion of William Pellan, a father of three and director of investigations for the Medical Examiner’s Office. He had a role in every infant death determination.
Pellan, 46, was an autopsy technician, a forensic investigator and then forensic supervisor at the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office before moving to the Pinellas-Pasco office in 2000.
“I see the worst case scenario,” Pellan said. “I don’t see the ones that make it. And then I take that home.”
Pellan’s sons are 17, 3 and 9 months. He is grateful, he said, that all three made it through the first four months of life – a crucial time because babies that age are not yet strong enough to lift their necks or roll over.
He and his wife took extra precautions during those early months, he said, and his wife sat in a chair while breast feeding to avoid dozing off.
According to PreventNeedlessDeaths.com, babies are 40 times more likely to die in adult beds than in a crib. And nearly 74 percent of deaths of babies younger than 4 months happen in bed-sharing situations.
“You have to put your baby in a safe sleep environment,” Pellan said. “That means putting your baby to sleep alone, your baby sleeping on their back.”
Pillow-top mattresses, stuffed animals, blankets and pillows are just as dangerous in an adult bed as in a crib, he said.
For years, many pediatricians recommended that babies be put to sleep on their stomachs, reasoning that babies who throw up would be less likely to choke on their vomit.
That was the longstanding advice of Benjamin Spock, a pediatrician-turned-author whose folksy handbook on child care made him the preeminent adviser to parents for more than three decades.
His book, The Common Sense of Baby and Child Care, told parents to put babies on their stomachs to avoid choking on their vomit or spit. It was only later, after “studies began to render it suspect,” that he changed his position, according to legacy.com.
His book sold more than 50 million copies, making it one of the best-selling books in the 20th century in the U.S.
A more recent book, The Science of Mom by Alice Green Callahan, says a 2005 study estimates 60,000 infant deaths could have been prevented had the “back-to-sleep” campaign started in 1974 rather than in the 1990s.
“The problem is changing society,” Pellan said. “Now, we realize that if you put your baby on their back, they’re not going to choke, even if they spit up.”
According to HealthyChildren.Org, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the leading cause of death for infants between the ages of 1 month and 1 year. However, the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner’s Office hasn’t ruled SIDS as a cause of death since December 2000, when Pellan and Chief Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin started there.
SIDS is an “easy way out” for medical examiners and coroners who don’t want to place the blame on anyone or don’t do a thorough investigation, Pellan said.
“We are sympathetic of someone that lost a child,” Pellan said. “However, we don’t beat around the bush when we make a determination and the cause of death is asphyxia or suffocation. We call it what it is.”
He said his staff hopes that firm policy will help prevent future tragedies.
At a day care in the 1990s, Pellan said, the office investigated the death of a baby who was put face down for a nap on a foam mattress. The ruling: SIDS.
Roughly seven years later, at the same day care and on same type of bed, the same provider did it again. The result: another dead baby. The cause of death: asphyxia.
The medical examiner staff then went back and changed the first baby’s death certificate to asphyxia, Pellan said.
Between 2010 and 2013, only three infants in Pinellas and Pasco counties died while in safe-sleep circumstances. They all died from bronchopneumonia.
In 2014, Pinellas County had eight infant deaths in unsafe-sleep circumstances and Pasco had seven, according to Pellan’s office. The Pasco deaths included these:
On March 8, a 6-month-old girl was pronounced dead after her father put her down on her stomach to sleep. An adult-size quilt was found in her crib.
On April 21, a father fell asleep with his 4-month-old son in his arms, When he woke up, the baby was unresponsive in the bed.
On Oct. 4, another 4-month-old infant was in an adult bed with his grandmother when he died. The baby had been placed in the middle of a U-shaped pillow with another pillow beneath him.