I guess this is my Manifesto? 

I guess this is my Manifesto?

I think I've got Alanis Morissette beat-- if you read the last paragraph of my last entry before reading this, you too can answer the question, "Isn't it ironic?" It's a sick, sad, twisted irony, but noticeable all the same.

I am sorry in advance if this hurts anyone’s feelings with regard to my new, strong opinion. I am very upset and I am just saying what I feel I need to say for the sake of others. It’s quite embarrassing for ME, so believe me when I say, I don’t enjoy telling this story and I’m sure I won’t enjoy the influx of angry emails I’ll be getting from my fellow crunchy friends. Having said that, please restrict your remarks to email form; I’m not up for phone calls or visits.

I feel like I need to give a little background to clearly illustrate the magnitude of the inconsistency of thought on my part that led to something very bad happening. Everything that I do, as a parent, I feel that I do in a thoughtful manner. I discipline my kids gently because I constantly read tons of books and empirical studies that show that corporal punishment and yelling don’t work in the long run. I don’t vaccinate my kids because I’ve read numerous reports and empirical evidence stating that kids whose parents have Crohn’s disease and other familial risks should not be vaccinated. I’m a professional who has a piece of paper that says that I know how to teach and counsel children. I choose to breastfeed my kids (however briefly for two of them) because I’ve read and researched and I feel it’s the best choice.

There’s another parenting choice that I’ve made, but on this choice, I’ve ignored every article and study I’ve read about it. I made this choice because many of my friends make this choice. I let my babies sleep in my bed. Friends have told me that babies are fine as long as the comforter is light, as long as there’s a bedrail (or in our case, a co-sleeper) on the side of the bed, and as long as you don’t use an exorbitant amount of pillows. When I have discussed this topic with people who have very strong opinions on the matter, they have told me, “A baby is actually SAFER in her parents’ bed than in a crib.” They feel that empirical studies have been skewed by the fact that formula companies are out to destroy the family bed, thus leading to the demise of breastfeeding and ultimately lining their own deep pockets.

My husband would often comment that he feared that one of us would roll onto the baby. I told him that that was bunk, because Dr. Sears said that we wouldn’t, as long as we’re not on drugs. Several times, one of us has awoken to find ourselves almost rolling onto the baby, but we figured that we never would actually roll ALL the way onto the baby--- because Dr. Sears said we wouldn’t. I read a study JUST LAST WEEK that noted that babies are safer in a co-sleeper or cradle in their parents’ room, and should not be in the bed with their parents until they are older than a year. I laughed at the study and made some comment about formula companies influencing studies. Keep in mind, I always require hard numbers and real evidence to make parenting decisions, but here, I decided that my friends must be right (not all of my friends, mind you; not even most—I can imagine a few friends reading this and thinking, “I NEVER said that!”). In the end, it was my choice and I believed what I wanted to believe, regardless of clear evidence to the contrary of my belief.

My bed’s comforter is not a heavy down comforter. It is a very light, breathable comforter. I use breathable pillows, and I don’t have many pillows on the bed. The baby is only three months old and can’t roll over, so I just move pillows away from her.

Last night, Reagan almost died. I would have to say that she was mostly dead, definitely closer to dead than alive, when I found her. I had nursed her to sleep and dozed off myself. Someone needed me upstairs and I went up, and then stopped to answer the phone before going back downstairs. I wasn’t gone long--- a comparable time to leaving the bed to check on another child, or to use the bathroom. While I was gone, Reagan inched up to near the top of the bed and wedged herself under a pillow, a very light pillow.
I found her completely blue, seemingly completely lifeless, and covered in sweat. Her eyes looked like little pinpricks and each eye stared in a different direction. When I grabbed her, she didn’t startle. She was floppy, like a doll. I started screaming and she didn’t notice. I couldn’t hear any breathing at all. I ran upstairs and got Mark and Al (Chris was on his way home from school) and we all tried to get her to breathe or look at us or make a sound while Mark called for an ambulance. She didn’t do anything. While Mark was on the phone with emergency response, we started to hear little breaths. She still was blue and floppy and her eyes were still tiny dots, but she was breathing little tiny breaths. Usually, if I make a noise during the night, she wakes up and cries. But this time, I was screaming for Jesus to help her, and screaming to my father-in-law to intercede for his granddaughter, and Reagan didn’t even wake up. Mark and Al spoke, yelled, tried to arouse her, and nothing happened. We put her on the floor and yelled and blew on her and prayed. Her heart was still beating and she was breathing a little, so I didn’t think CPR would do anything. The ambulance people arrived and gave her oxygen and I don’t even know what else. A policeman stayed with the kids while we got into the ambulance. Her arms and legs were still blue when we got to the hospital.
After lots of tests and waiting and annoying Reagan to try to perk her up, we were released in the early hours of this morning. She is absolutely fine now. The doctors said that with babies this young, it’s all or nothing—they either die, or they live to be absolutely fine; recover with no damage, no development problems, nothing. This morning, she was smiling, babbling, nursing, and just being her usual self. At the doctor’s office this afternoon, he told us that it doesn’t take long for brain death to occur; she could have been dead.

In college, I learned in one of my psych courses about something called the availability heuristic. Humans use all kinds of methods of judging the danger of a situation, called heuristics. The availability heuristic means that we may assign a lower risk to a behavior or danger than we statistically should, based on what’s available to us in the news, in our personal lives, or in stories we’ve heard. Most of us don’t know of a baby who has died in her parents’ bed, so we don’t think the danger is real. Most of us have friends who have strong opinions on parenting, who will opine for days on end about how putting a baby in his or her crib is tantamount to child abuse. So we make our judgments based on what’s available to us. I don’t like to think about what happened to Reagan last night. I can’t get the vision of her, blue and lifeless, out of my head. But I’m writing this so that all of my friends, family, and friends of my family and friends can think of Reagan. Now you know someone whose baby was almost dead because her mother carelessly left her in an adult bed, assuming that there was no danger.

If I had returned maybe a minute later, she would have been dead. I’m told that she’ll be fine now and will develop normally. But she was blue and unconscious for a very long time. Someday she might struggle in math. Or maybe she’ll have speech problems. Or maybe she’ll have poor balance, just like any kid. But now I’ll always have to think, “is this because I left her to almost suffocate to death in my bed? Is this because she laid under a pillow without oxygen, wondering if her Mommy was going to show up to save her? Is this because she spent hours looking like a floppy doll, with eyes staring into nothing?” I will always love my children, no matter what their strengths or challenges. But with Reagan, now I’ll always have to wonder if I could have done something to prevent it. So I’m telling everyone. Babies can die in adult beds. Yes, babies can die in cribs, too, but studies show that babies are safer in a co-sleeper or crib or cradle.

To anyone who feels that it would break their heart to put a baby in a cradle or co-sleeper, I need to tell you from my own terrible experience: the sad feelings of seeing a baby sleeping alone in her cradle are nothing compared to the trauma of seeing your child unconscious and blue. Sleep with the co-sleeper attached to your bed and keep a hand on the baby. Or, if it suits your fancy, stay awake half the night and let baby sleep in your arms, while you sit and watch her sleep. Cuddle your baby all day long and wear her in a sling. Rock her to sleep. Just please, be sure that when you finally put your baby down to sleep, put her in an empty cradle/crib/co-sleeper, with no pillows, blankets or teddy bears.

If you are one of my family members or friends who doesn’t have a baby, you can tell your friends or family who have babies. Tell them that you know a baby whose mother ignored the findings of reputable research reports and ignored her own instincts and her husband’s instincts because she’s a stupid sucker for peer pressure, and a beautiful baby almost died because of it.

A lot of my friends ask me for parenting advice because I have so many children, and because I treat and teach children for a living. I like to think it’s also because my children are bright and sweet. So, to all of my wonderful friends who tell me that they’ve learned something about parenting from me, I humbly ask that you also learn something from my magnificent stupidity.