A six-month-old baby has died in the UK after being found trapped between his sleeping mother and the arm of a chair.
The drunken woman passed out after drinking two or three bottles of wine, says a report by the local Derby and Derbyshire Child Welfare Committee, seen by the BBC.
It was the child’s father, on returning home, who found the two lifeless bodies on the chair. The mother was drowsy and the baby was “apparently lifeless”, the report said.
The child died two days later, despite attempts to resuscitate the baby initially appearing to work.
The mother’s family glossed over her ‘chaotic alcohol abuse’ while the child was still alive, and several signs should have alerted the authorities, according to the local Child Safeguarding Committee, the equivalent British from the DPJ.
The lady’s sister, for example, had already called the police to report her and the baby missing, fearing alcohol consumption was at stake.
Her husband had also reported her for driving drunk with the child in the vehicle.
Despite these indications, no investigation into the degree of risk posed by the mother’s consumption to the child’s health has been carried out.
The professionals who confronted the mother about her relationship with alcohol preferred to believe her version of the facts. The woman claimed that her drinking was occasional.
A completely different portrait appeared after the death of the baby.
The mother’s father and family revealed that the mother had ‘heavy and persistent drinking problems for several years’.
If this information had been known before the tragedy, “it could have shaken the confidence of the professionals that this baby was safe”, says the report of the local Child Protection Committee.