35 infant co-sleeping deaths — and the Macon leaders working to stop more

It happened more than four decades ago, but the incident was so terrifying and unexpected that it has stuck with Sabrina Ellis-Friday all these years later.

She was lying in the same bed with her infant son and thrashing around during an uneasy night of sleep. Unknowingly, she rolled on top of the child, but woke up in the nick of time.

“He was gasping for air, and that’s how I knew I had laid on top of him by accident,” said Ellis-Friday, a former law enforcement officer who is now director of Mother’s Nest, a Macon nonprofit working to improve the health and wellbeing of mothers and babies by providing training, support and supplies, including cribs.

At the time, Ellis-Friday wasn’t aware of the dangers associated with sleeping with her child, such as accidental suffocation. Though her baby was fine, other parents haven’t been so lucky.

Mother’s Nest is one of the organizations sounding the alarm on what can happen to a child when safe sleeping practices aren’t followed.

“When you know better, you do better,” said Ellis-Friday, who started the nonprofit in 2022. 

Nationally, Sudden Unexpected Infant Death, involving children under the age of 1, is on the rise. Georgia mirrors that uptick, and the North Central Health District, which includes Bibb County, has “really experienced that increase rather dramatically,” said Terri Miller, the program manager of the state Department of Public Health’s Infant Sleep Program.

From 2016 to 2019, the district reported 26 cases of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death, or SUID. Over the following three years, that number doubled to 52.

SUID cases, the overwhelming majority of which occur during infants’ sleep, include Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), which are unexplained even after full investigations, and accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed. Other undetermined causes also fall in the SUID category.

A study published in 2024 in an American Academy of Pediatrics journal attributed more than half of SUID cases to unsafe sleeping practices. Of those, non-Hispanic Black infants are twice as likely to become SUID victims.

Reasons that a parent might decide to sleep next to a child vary. Sometimes, Ellis-Friday said, parents can’t afford to buy separate baby beds. Sometimes, parents are tired, Miller said. Late at night, after a baby is fed, it might seem easier to rest next to the child. Sometimes, parents view sleeping with a child as a bonding experience. On a “Stop the Killing” billboard erected by Macon-Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones, the message “No Baby Co-Sleeping” is included.

Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney Anita R. Howard launched her own campaign against co-sleeping in 2021. From that time through last year, she said, there have been 35 infant deaths in Bibb County directly linked to that fraught practice.

“That is 35 families that are affected,” she said. “That’s 35 mothers who birthed babies that are no longer here. The trauma that comes with that is unimaginable.”

Her office has hosted events and collaborated with many organizations in the community to sponsor lunch and learns, safe sleeping demonstrations, infant CPR training and bassinet drives. 

One mother who had already lost a child because of co-sleeping reached out to her to attend one of the events.

When an infant dies accidentally due to unsafe sleeping practices, charges typically aren’t brought against the parent — unless a pattern is identified or signs of intentional abuse are present, the district attorney said. 

Howard added that, despite the existing awareness campaigns, there is still a need for more resources and creative outreach, “whether that’s PSAs on TV, PSAs on the radio, social media, yard signs.”

“I don’t think there’s ever enough that can be done to make sure that we have an informed community where, again, children are safe,” she said, “because, when children are safe, children thrive; communities are safer.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics issues guidelines to help parents — the ABCs of safe sleeping. They are A.)  the baby should be sleeping alone; B.) the baby should be sleeping on his or her back; and C.) the baby should be sleeping in a crib or bassinet with a firm, flat surface.