Two infant deaths caused by what Butler County officials say were unsafe sleep conditions have promoted a push to raise public information about the issue.
“Every county has a child fatality review board, it’s a multidisciplinary panel,” said Dr. Claudia Preuschoff. “ ... We are tasked with reviewing every child’s death in the county.
“We found ourselves reviewing two infant deaths that were related to unsafe sleep conditions in a very tight, close time frame, and we just felt that was two too many.”
The deaths could have been caused by a co-sleeping situation or another unsafe sleep situation, Preuschoff said.
The panel’s mission, she said, is to identify trends and come up with solutions and prevention.
“While we’ve seen automobile deaths go down at least in our area, our unsafe sleep deaths have remained fairly steady, both in the county and the whole Southeast Missouri region,” Preuschoff said.
Between 2014 and 2019, Preuschoff said, there were 111 unsafe sleep deaths in Southeast Missouri.
That number, she said, is “way too many.”
“Child deaths due to unsafe sleeping conditions are tragedies I’ve seen too frequently in both my capacity as prosecuting attorney, as well as (being) a member of the child fatality review panel,” said Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kacey Proctor.
Proctor described the more than 100 child deaths related to unsafe sleeping conditions as all being preventable.
“Too many times, I have reviewed reports where someone has suffocated their child or crushed them in their sleep,” Proctor said. “In all 111 cases, I would bet if the parents were asked, they would all say they never thought that it would happen to their baby/infant.”
The majority of unsafe infant sleep deaths Preuschoff sees are under six months of age, but “by definition” it can occur up to age 12 months. That, she said, is not backed by any specific national data.
“I’ve been on the child fatality review panel for many, many years,” she said.
After the most recent child fatality review panel met, “we decided we really wanted to work on creating some sort of community response to address the issue of unsafe sleep and subsequent infant death,” Preuschoff explained. “We wanted to get as much input from the people who are already working on this as we can.”
Some of those entities, including the Butler County Health Department, Butler County Sheriff’s Department, Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center and Butler County Community Resource Council, recently met, along with Preuschoff and Proctor, to discuss that issue.
Preuschoff said there is education on unsafe infant sleeping being provided through a number of sources, including Poplar Bluff Regional and the health department’s Women, Infants and Children program.
Liz Glastetter, a registered nurse at PBRMC, spoke about the hospital’s education for new parents, which includes the ABCs of safe sleep -- alone, back and crib.
A baby should always sleep alone, and parents should not sleep in the same bed as their baby.
Proctor also encouraged all parents to avoid sleeping in the same bed as their child.
Safe sleeping conditions also are covered in the Butler County Community Resource Council’s young parents mentoring program, said Dalene Chilton.
“We cover that in our prenatal and post-natal class,” Chilton said. “ ... That is just part of the education I provide in the classes.”
There are so many “amazing organizations that are already working, but perhaps in isolation mode, not necessarily as a cohesive community,” said Preuschoff, who believes joining the various entities will help get the message out.
Initially, Preuschoff said, the group thought about creating a public-service-announcement campaign, but “then, we realized we really need to look at who our partners are and what’s already out there to really do an effective job.”
The focus of the group moving forward, she said, will be on “creating public awareness with the goal of decreasing infant deaths.”
“I think we have an amazing group,” Preuschoff said. “I think we have some work to do, and I’m really looking forward to coming together with this group and a few other organizations that we identified that need to be part of this process.”