A grieving mother has shared a heartwrenching warning to parents around the world after her baby girl tragically died after sharing a bed together.
Baby Abigail was just 10-weeks-old when her mum Savannah Struchen laid down in bed to breastfeed her daughter before she drifted off.
Sadly, little Abigail never opened her eyes again.
Sharing a graphic warning to parents on her Facebook page, Savannah is desperate to not let her baby’s death be in vain.
When she woke from her nap, Savannah found blood on her shirt coming from her baby’s nose.
She immediately panicked, thinking back to a story she’d heard about where a mum had lost her own baby to bed-sharing.
The woman had said she found her baby with blood and mucus flowing from her nose.
But Savannah knew that would never happen to her.
‘Not me. Not my baby. It couldn’t be,’ she wrote. ‘She would wake up if I picked her up and changed her diaper, right?’
But Abby never regained consciousness.
Her mother described the moment she realised her daughter was gone, revealing she was ‘as limp as a rag doll.’
‘I remember crying and screaming, no, no, no,’ she wrote, adding that her husband then rushed into the room before scolding her about co-sleeping.
‘I remember him screaming down the stairs for his mom’s phone, calling 911, attempting CPR.’
‘I remember the EMTs coming in and trying before rushing her to the hospital.’
‘I remember being talked to, driven to the police station and being interrogated. I remember the cop taking my shirt for evidence and handing me another one to change into.’
‘I remember crying until my eyes were swollen, my face was smeared with snot and my head hurt.’
Suzannah said that she thought she was doing the right thing for her baby, that she was reassured by multiple mums from mothers groups that is was safe to share a bed with her child.
She admits that she didn’t think about the dangers, even though she’d been warned, even though she’d been educated by doctors and nurses on safe sleep, even though she often argued about it with her husband.
Suzannah has been incredibly open about her involvement in her baby’s death.
‘I wish I hadn’t taken that risk,’ she wrote. ‘I wish I’d listened.’
In an attempt to save others from making the same mistake, the distraught mum shared an emotional plea with others.
‘I ask every mom who reads this who still bed-shares, intends to bed-share, or is on the fence between bed-sharing and safe sleep – do you REALLY want to rake that risk of a very tiny variable killing your baby – a variable you cannot control because you will be ASLEEP? Do you REALLY think you can beat the odds? Are you REALLY that comfortable with the lifelong guilt and grief you will carry?’
‘Please listen to me and don’t let Abby’s death be in vain.’
Suzannah added that every mother that bed-shares think they’re doing the right thing for their baby.
‘They’ve been told it’s natural. They’ve been assured by relatives, friends, and strangers on Facebook that they’ve all done it with their babies and their babies are fine,’ she wrote.
‘They’ve been told it’s cruel to leave baby alone in a cold crib to cry.’
‘They’ve been told the egregious lie that bed-sharing actually reduces SIDS because baby mimics mom’s breathing!’
‘They’ve been told it’s actually dangerous NOT to bed-share because an overtired mom trying to sit up to feed might fall asleep in a dangerous place.
‘[They] most probably lie when the doctor asks if baby sleeps on their own, with that sick feeling in their heart, wondering if the doctor will suspect the truth and call CPS.’
‘But most moms haven’t read about positional asphyxia because their adult bed is too soft, even if it’s a firm mattress by adult standards.’
‘Most moms haven’t heard hat baby can actually suffocate under moms breast.’
‘Most moms won’t consider the possibility that maybe one night, one of the ‘safe bed-sharing’ variables might slip and they might let it go because baby won’t sleep anywhere else now. They might let it go because ‘it’s just one night, it won’t hurt.’
‘Most moms don’t think about the fact that they will be an UNCONSCIOUS adult weighing so much more than baby and that a baby’s suffocation is silent.’
Suzannah knows all this because she was that mother.
Now she’s determined to share her message far and wide to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen to any other innocent child.
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