Baby found to have suffocated to death inside mum’s sling
A three-week-old baby boy most likely suffocated to death while inside a sling worn by his mother, a NSW coroner has found.
Harvey McGlinn was found pale and motionless when his mother, Tattika Dunn, unwrapped him from the sling at a Central Coast community health centre in 2019.
When Ms Dunn took her son in for his appointment, 25 minutes after arriving at the centre, the nurse with her began performing CPR.
After a doctor from the medical centre next door, paramedics, and a doctor from CareFlight continued attempts to revive Harvey for another 30 minutes, he was pronounced dead.
In findings delivered on Thursday, the coroner said evidence established that Harvey’s airway was compromised due to the position of his neck, with his head on his chin, in the sling.
Harvey was Ms Dunn’s third son with fiancé Bill McGlinn.
“It’s still very raw and my heart feels like it’s been ripped in a million pieces,” she wrote in a Facebook post a month after her son’s death.
She declined to be involved in the inquest, and there is no suggestion that duty of care was breached.
Staff at the health centre and the manufacturer of the sling were cleared of liability over Harvey’s death.
“Harvey’s relatively low weight may have resulted in less muscle and head control resulting in a difficulty in maintaining a patent airway from the way that Harvey was positioned in the sling,” the coroner said.
Witnesses told the coroner that the baby boy’s entire body was inside the loosely fitted sling.
According to the coroner’s report, RN (Registered Nurse) Kovacs saw Ms Dunn arrive “wearing a blue, sling-like carrier around her” with a “bulge-like presence” at the bottom of the sling, which Kovacs descried as below the level of Ms Dunn’s belly button and horizontal.
The nurse said that if she “recognised or believed there was a baby inside the sling” at the time, “she would have considered there was an element of risk” with how the baby was being carried.
RN Percy, a second nurse at the centre, saw Ms Dunn arrive at reception at 9.01am but stated that she “did not recognise that Tattika was wearing a baby carrier and instead thought that she was carrying a bag of some kind around her neck”.
Since the incident, the coroner said NSW Health has made changes to the advice about the risks of baby slings.
Deborah Martha, the NSW Health director of maternity, child and family, told the inquest that banning slings may be the only way to eliminate the risk, but noted that their customary place in some cultures and their use by some disabled people meant that a ban would be difficult.
A new acronym, TICKS, has been created to help prevent the same tragedy from occurring.
The acronym stands for Tight, In view, Close, Keep chin off chest and Supported, and advises parents on how to best use slings.
The baby should be held tight and high, in view of the parent at all times, be close enough to kiss, and in a position so that their chin is off their chest and that they back is well-supported and in a natural position.
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