Day 10: SIDS and SUID (Sudden Unexplained Infant Death)
You prepared for 9 months for the arrival of your sweet little bundle of joy. The nursery was painted, the baby's initial hung just so over the crib--even the rocker was positioned at exactly a 45 degree angle in the corner.
The time came. You went into labor, bore the pain of childbirth, and held the sweet reward of your brand new baby in your arms. You brought that little bundle of joy home and began your new life of sleep deprivation, feeding 'round the clock, changing your spit-up-on shirt 50 times a day, and getting the poopy-diaper-change down to a science.
And then one day, you checked on your sweet little one while he napped in the crib, and he wasn't breathing.
Oh mother, how your heart stopped right along with his.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or Sudden Unexplained Infant Death (SUID) are horrors that no parent wants to even imagine ever facing. But every year, approximately 3500 babies in the US die suddenly for unexplained reasons. The rates have gone down over the past 25 years, but that doesn't make it any easier an experience for those 3500 families each year who suddenly find themselves without their youngest member.
If you have found yourself in this situation, I cannot fully express how my heart breaks for you. Even though the numbers for SUID and SIDS are significantly lower than those for stillbirth and miscarriage, you also need to know that you are not alone in your grief or your experiences.
If you would like to read some stories of other families who have walked this same road, check out the following pages:
Losing a Child to SIDS: My Brother's Story