A published profile with photographs of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s family nursery adorned with toys and pillows has worried child safety experts, who say the arrangement could be dangerous for a baby.
“A crib that’s safe for a baby to sleep is empty except for a firm mattress,” said Laura Reno, an executive with Baltimore-based First Candle, a nonprofit group that helps spread the word about infant deaths. “Any time you put any of that fluffy stuff in there, it can get in the way of the oxygen they need.”
Reno and others are stirred up over photos of Michelle Cross Fenty that ran in the Washington Post’s Home Section last week. The pictures show a crib nearly buried in plush pink toys, bumpers, quilts and blankets. The Fentys are expecting a little girl — the first in the family in generations.
Child safety advocates say that babies can easily suffocate in a crowded, plush-filled crib. Several, including Children’s National Medical Center Dr. Rachel Moon, have written letters to the Post saying that the photos send a
dangerous message.
“We were, like, crazy when we saw it,” said Betty Connal, executive director of SIDS-Mid-Atlantic, a nonprofit group based in Northern Virginia.
Connal also wrote to the Post. “That crib is just not a safe place for a baby to be sleeping in,” she told The Examiner.
Fenty’s spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said, “The Fenty baby isn’t born yet and therefore not a single Fenty has slept in the crib. The toys were simply part of the layout for the Post photo shoot. Once the baby arrives the Fentys will follow all precautions with regard to SID safety.”
Post officials didn’t return calls.
Nearly 90 percent of D.C.-area babies who die suddenly in their first year suffocate while sleeping, Reno said.
African-American children are more at risk. Three times as many black babies die in their sleep as white or Asian babies do, Connal said.
“That made it doubly worse to see Mrs. Fenty’s crib,” Connal said. “Let’s hope she takes all the soft stuff out of the crib before the baby arrives.”
For more information on safe sleeping, check out Web sites for First Candle, www.firstcandle.org, or SIDS-Mid-Atlanic, www.sidsma.org.
