S.I.D.S Or Murder?
AdventureDad | June 18S.I.D.S has always been a subject that worried me , especially with our first child. I wrote about a possible cure a while back at this site and got some comments. One comment touched me since it was from a mother who had just lost her son to SIDS. She also wrote me some private emails and we emailed back and forth a few times. The story unfortunately has a horrible twist to it. The parent has since been charged with murder of her 6-month old son, Thomas Boettger, and is currently in prison awaiting trial.
When our son was born over 3 years ago I felt great about becoming a father and the tremendous responsibility didn’t bother me. But S.I.D.S did. To wake up one morning finding my son’s cold and lifeless body has been on my mind many times. S.I.D.S is scary to me since researchers have few answers of potential causes. There are several things that will increase the risks but even if I did everything right, my son could still have fallen asleep and never woken up.
Thomas Boettger’s parents seems to have been handling their parental duties far from perfect:
According to the document, the father told a medical investigator that his son woke up about 5 a.m. last Oct. 25, crying heavily, and he gave the baby a dose of Zantac and a half-tablet of Sominex.He later gave another account, in which he said he gave his son crushed half-pills of Unisom, Zantac and Benadryl via syringes and bottles, said Medical Investigator James Ramirez.
Greco said earlier that the Boettgers had been giving the infant over- the-counter adult drugs “over a period of time.”
Not only is S.I.D.S scary to me but this tragic case sounds a lot like our now 9-month old daughter. Only we didn’t constantly fill her up with drugs. Thomas Boettger had colic and was naturally crying a lot. So did our daughter. He also had acid reflux. Our daughter had that too. And on top of that, our daughter has virtually zero patience and can be described as a cranky Energizer bunny.
We have had many difficult days with our daughter. If you have had a baby with colic, you know what I’m talking about. She’s now 10 months old but let me sum it up by saying she’s high maintenance. There have been days when I wanted to hang myself in the nearest tree or give her away to a stranger. We did get some over the counter drops from our local doctor that helped a bit in the beginning and gave us some relief. But never in our wildest dreams did we ever consider mixing adult medications into some kind of miracle formula. What kind of sick thinking is this?
Before becoming a parent I think it’s a good idea of being prepared for anything. There’s a Swedish expression that says “gilla läget”. It basically means one must do the best out of every situation. Even if it’s not always pleasant. A baby can be born with various problems and nothing about personality traits can be predicted. First baby could be an angel, second one could be a “nightmare”. Just because a baby doesn’t come out exactly as predicted or wished for, poor parenting is no excuse. A baby can’t chose his/her parents.
Thomas Boettger tragically got very unlucky and will never have a chance to grow up and see the world. As far as I know the trial has not started yet so the parents are of course innocent until proven guilty. But is sure sounds like they made some terrible choices under difficult circumstances.
My son cried for the six months of his life. If he was awake, he was generally screaming. His mom wasn’t producing milk so we used formula. Naturally starting with the least expensive. We finally moved up to the most expensive we could find in our local grocery and that seemed to help. He has always been energetic and “challenging”. I don’t ever remember giving him anything for it. We were pretty sure it was acid reflux and just moved through formulas until we found something that worked. He always enjoyed being swung so I spent hours swinging him that I’m sure added up to weeks.
One of the things I learned when I used to work for a law enforcement agency is that police respond to every report of a SIDS death. Research has apparently shown that a lot of deaths that were blamed on SIDS were actually something else, and many of those “other” deaths were due to child abuse.
I was very worried about SIDS when my kids were infants. When I was in elementary school, our next door neighbors had a child die from SIDS. That had a big effect on me, but thankfully we weren’t affected by SIDS. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to experience a real SIDS death and then have the cops show up to make sure you didn’t intentionally harm your child. But unfortunately, that’s the world we live in.
Dear Adventure Dad: I am familiar with the Boetgger case. Unforutnately, the mother belong(ed) to an online support group where parents have lost their children. It was pretty stunning when the group found out what the Boetgger’s had been charged with. Some thought that the mother who had joined the group did so for her own (future) defense. Others thought it might be a terrible mistake/understanding. However, when the facts were revealed (the practice of administering drugs to this child)it was pretty hard to deny what might have actually happened. Know that the parents (and presumably various officials) were assuming “SIDS” before the autopsy report even came back. In the meantime, mom and dad also created a pretty extensive website in honor of their son, Thomas Michael. So.. was it murder or? I guess the jury will have to decide that.
On another level, this brings to light the misuse and overuse/misunderstanding of SIDS in general — another topic for another day. I will add one more thing though.. unfortunately autopsy protocol across the board is not uniform when it comes to “diagnosing” SIDS. There are plenty of medical examiners who more than likely will privately admit that they too have a problem with “diagnosing” something that essentially only a diagnosis of exclusion. It’s unfortunate that limited funding and time also seem to be a factor in this ongoing mess called SIDS.
This is absolutely horrible!! Chhimi and I worry about little Erik on all levels and when he was very young (first 6-8 weeks or so) we thought he was colic and would stay round the clock rocking and consoling him. Even at our most frustrated level, one of us would serve as the calm one and take over.
And when we were both frustrated, we seeked help from loving Grandparents! We NEVER thought of medicating him, especially with adult medication! Then we found out that Erik was basically very hungry and I wasn’t nursing him enough as I thought I was based on reading all the baby books!
It just really saddens me to know an innocent baby was treated this way and had a tragic ending :-(!