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I'd fallen asleep while breastfeeding my babies in bed many times, so it always shocks me to hear stories like this ...
A 29-year-old mother on a flight from Washington D.C. to Kuwait accidentally smothered her baby while breastfeeding, the Daily Mail reports.
The Egyptian woman was flying to Kuwait on November 24 to show her new baby to relatives. She fell asleep while nursing the little girl. When she woke up, she started screaming, alerting the American Airlines crew. A doctor on board tried to revive the lifeless baby without success.
Police are calling the death an "unexplained tragic accident," and believe the baby came from a loving family.
Lots of breastfeeding moms co-sleep with their babies with no problems whatsoever. While death is rare, it does happen. There are about 500 cases a year where babies have died while sleeping with their parents in bed.
I wonder if the atypical upright position of the mother in the airplane seat had something to do with this sad, sad incident? Perhaps you have other thoughts to share.
Does this story change your mind about falling asleep while breastfeeding your baby?
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Comments (20)
It doesn't cange my mind, I don't sleep while BF. I co-sleep, I nurse while laying down, but the risks of smothering with BF while I am sleeping are so much more increased that it's just not a risk I can take.
That poor mother, that's a long long trip and I cannot imagine how hard it would have been for her to stay awake on the flight. It's a horrible accident and my thoughts go out to her and her family.
That sounds a little fishy to me.
God, that poor woman, and that poor baby!
I nurse while sleeping all the time. Sometimes the baby (3 months old) finds it all by himself (we co-sleep) and I wake up to him nursing. It probably did have alot to do with the up-right position she was in.
This is why I don't co-sleep, and won't when baby #9 gets here. Now this makes me not want to BF anymore
It's tragic, but doesn't change my mind about how I parent.
I co-slept while I breastfed my son. It worked great and I did sleep while he ate too! I don't have very big boobs though...even when I was breastfeeding.
As for sitting up and breastfeeding, I wouldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep and hold my infant at the same time anyway. She probably fell asleep causing her to slouch forward and trap her poor infant under her boob. Poor baby!
COSLEEPING IN A BED is entirely different than falling asleep, sitting up, on an airplane! IT IS NOT THE SAME THING!
How in the world can you claim it's a COSLEEPING death? The woman was not sleeping in a bed with her baby. It should NOT be categorized as cosleeping. Just as you're not going to say that an old, rickety crib with rusty and missing nails, broken slats, a million blankets and your five cats in it is "the same" as a safe, new, sturdy, empty crib.
This is why people THINK co-sleeping is unsafe. Someone is SITTING ON AN AIRPLANE, and people blame co-sleeping, when it's NOT COSLEEPING AT ALL.
Sorry, but this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. It's just the way this country convinces people that co-sleeping is unsafe by saying even a drunk and drugged mom passing out of the couch is the safe category as me sleeping next to my children, knowingly, at night. IT'S NOT.
THANK YOU RanaAurora!!!
I think the sitting upright had a lot to do with it. When I was breastfeeding my oldest, I would start falling asleep sitting up nursing her. And every time I put her back down after she fell asleep at the breast, she'd wake up, so I was constantly lacking sleep. By the time she was 3 or 4 months old, I gave up on the idea of putting her in the crib and brought her to sleep with me. I figured if I breastfed while laying down and fell asleep, I wouldn't have to worry about dropping her, and if I followed the basic rules of keeping blankets and pillows away from her and things like that, she'd be safe, and the way I held her in the crook of my arm, she was protected against Daddy rolling over on her. Proportionately, more babies are smothered to death in cribs than in their parent's bed, because their parent's aren't usually in the room or aware enough to realize that their baby is suffocating.
Oh geeze! I am going to start formula feeding my son and let him scream alone in a bed now! Thank God I read this to know I live my life in the most hazardous way possible.