A CHILD SUFFOCATED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19803, 31 May 1926, Page 8

A CHILD SUFFOCATED

DISTRESSING CIRCUMSTANCES. (From Odb Own , Cobeespondent.) THAMES, May 29. A story of the death, of an infant distressing circumstances was related to the coroner, Mr W. Lucas, this morning at an inquest on the death yesterday of Keith M’Collum. the five weeks’ old son of Mr and Mrs K. M'Collum. In the course of her evidence the mother said that on Thursday evening she slept with with the child in a double bed, which was also occupied by another woman with a 10 months old baby. She ministered to the child’s wants at midnight and when she awoke at 5 o’clock the next morning she found the child dead under her left arm on the outside part of the bed. She thought the baby must have got under her during the night and died by suffocation. The other occupant of the bed said she shared it with the previous witness that evening to make room for visitors who were occupying the available house accommodation. She remembered Mrs M’Collum attending to the child at midnight but did not wake again until the morning. Dr A. S. Gray certified to the effect that death had been caused by suffocation. in answer to the coroner witness stated that in an age when so much attention was being given to child welfare the practice of having the child in bed with the mother was a thing to be deprecated. An occurrence of this unfortunate nature should show how easily such accidents could be avoided if the child slept separately or in a basinette by the side\if the bed.

The coroner sympathised with the mother in the loss of her first child. He stressed the point that in these enlightened times it was not the custom for a mother to sleep with her young child. All danger of death could be easily obviated, by placing the child in a cot beside the bed. He returned a verdict of accidental death by suffocation whilst the child was in bed with its mother and others.