A 6-week-old baby named Noah Pearson (pictured above), suffocated to death in his sleep after being deprived of oxygen while sleeping in between his parent in bed at their home in Bradford, in West Yorkshire.
According to the UK Telegraph, Noah's parents, Paul Pearson 24 and Emily Lambert 22, had left him with his grandmother while they went out with friends for drinks for the first time in a year. They returned at about 3.30am the following day drunk but still took their baby from the grandmother...
Noah's father took him into their room to sleep in his Moses basket which was placed by his side of their bed. But when Noah started to cry around 5am, his father took him from the Moses basket and brought him into the bed he shared with his partner and placed him between them.
When the couple woke up at about 8.50am, they found blood coming out from Noah's nostrils. He was immediately taken to the Bradford Royal hospital where test showed he died from Sudden Infant Death syndrome after being deprived of oxygen.
At an inquest, a doctor warned of the dangers of parents sleeping with their babies as a coroner said a contributary factor in Noah's death on May 31 was "co-sleeping and parental alcohol consumption".
Consultant paediatrician Dr Eduardo Moya told the hearing that the parents' decision to co-sleep with their baby and having consumed alcohol that night may have contributed to their baby's death. He said baby Noah was found to have a minor rhino virus, akin to a nose cold.
Dr Moya said:
"The not deliberate and unfortunate set of circumstances is well-documented - bed sharing with parents combined with alcohol consumption. Furthermore one or both of the parents did smoke and that could be a contributory factor as that baby had a rhino viral infection. There are a series of risk factors that increase the likelihood of having SIDS. One reason bed sharing is considered dangerous is that one parents could roll on to the infant in the middle of the night."
"This was a tragedy and there is nobody as fault but I believe it is important to know the etymology of SIDS. These are contributory factors because we don't know the ultimate cause of SIDS. I pass my condolences on to the family. It was clear to me when I went to see them that nobody did anything wrong or deliberate. It was an unfortunate tragedy."Source: UK Telegraph