Jordyn Smith's parents saw she wasn't breathing when they woke up Sunday morning. The couple took the baby to a fire station on Lake Isabella Boulevard before taking her to Kern Valley Hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Detectives say the Bakersfield family was camping at the French Gulch Campground in Lake Isabella. The parents and the baby all slept in a truck tent in the bed of a pick-up truck Saturday night. Investigators say the parents found baby Jordyn unresponsive when they tried waking her.
The County Public Health Department’s Child Death Review team says sleep deaths are more common than any other accidental death for babies under a year old. Nurses advise parents traveling with infants to bring a small, portable playpen-type crib to prevent the baby from possibly suffocating while sleeping with the parents.
"Even use a big drawer. The baby has to have a confined space,” said Jane Yadon, a Public Health nurse. “Make sure it's clean, hard, and firm. Put just one blanket over it, just so that baby has its own place and can breathe.”
Yadon also advises parents to place their infants on their back to sleep, tuck them in a tightly fitted sheet, and never leave stuffed animals, thick blankets or pillows inside the crib.
She says babies under one year don't have the physical ability to roll themselves back and forth freely, so it's imperative that infants are not covered or sleep with hats.
For more infant safety tips, you can call the Public Health Services Department at 321-3000.
