Earlier this month, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an article about the dangers of unlicensed child care; this article follows. Earlier this year, a Columbia news, views & reviews posting pointed to the same issues.

“From 2007 through 2010, at least 45 children – most of them infants – died in child care for reasons other than existing illnesses. Of the 35 sleep-related deaths in child care, all but four occurred in unlicensed day cares.” 

by Nancy Cambria, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On a late spring day, Julie Clifton dressed her baby boy Nathan in a blue and black onesie, drove him to his nearby home day care and gently kissed him goodbye.

Hours later, she got a phone call at work. Nathan, who had been a healthy 3-month-old that morning, went down for a nap and didn’t wake up.

In the last several years, dozens of Missouri families have dealt with unfathomable losses in the very places they were assured their babies’ safety would come first: paid child care.

From 2007 through 2010, at least 45 children – most of them infants – died in child care for reasons other than existing illnesses.

Of that total, 35 deaths occurred as the babies napped, sometimes just days after parents nervously left them for the first time in child care.

In the aftermath, some parents were told the deaths were isolated and unavoidable accidents.

But a Post-Dispatch investigation found that in most of the sleep deaths, caregivers failed to follow basic safety steps that might have saved lives.

Some didn’t know the dangers of letting babies nap on their abdomens, or near blankets or on adult beds. Others knew the risks, but discounted or dismissed them.

The investigation further found a systematic failure in Missouri to prevent the deaths, rooted in some of the weakest child care regulations in the country. Missouri’s child care oversight is so inadequate that state regulators lack the information and the authority to address the problem.

That’s because the vast majority of deaths occurred outside the reach of state oversight, typically in unregulated home day cares.

Of the 35 sleep-related deaths in child care, all but four occurred in unlicensed day cares. There are no inspections in such settings, and caregivers are not required to meet simple sleep safety standards that have been credited with saving lives in other states.

And documents show that even after a child dies, the subsequent investigation often declares the death as unavoidable even though safe sleep standards weren’t met.

Consequently, the public – and lawmakers – are unaware of the deaths. Even parents often don’t know the circumstances leading to their children’s deaths.

Take Julie Clifton, who learned two years ago in a medical examiner’s report that Nathan died June 2, 2009, of sudden infant death syndrome – a cause of death that is supposed to apply only when babies mysteriously die in their sleep with no other suspected cause.

SIDS should not be the finding when known sleep hazards are present, including placing infants to sleep on their abdomens, some experts say.

The Cliftons read the term SIDS and assumed there had been no way to prevent Nathan’s death.

So they stopped asking questions of police.

In June, the Post-Dispatch provided Julie Clifton with a copy of the police report on Nathan’s death.

She said nobody – not the caregiver, not the police, not the medical examiner – had told her that Nathan was found with his face in a pillow.

Read the entire article here.