PUYALLUP, Wash. - For Ann Heneghan, it feels like yesterday. It was 5 years ago that her 3-month-old daughter Cathleen died.
"There's not a day in my life that I don't think of her," she said.
How Cathleen died had always been a mystery until now. Ann got a call last week from the Consumer Product Safety Commission that a sling she used to carry Cathleen may have been what suffocated her.
"I took the sling off to take her out of it. Gone. Absolutely gone," she said.
Since then Ann has used baby slings for her two other children, not aware that the sling might have been what suffocated her firstborn. She wants parents to learn from her loss.
"I just don't want any other parent to go through this," said Heneghan. "I cannot hate someone enough to wish this on them."
Ann says she doesn't plan to sue, she just wants parents to know the dangers. Her case is one of 14 other deaths the CPSC is investigating. Most of the babies were under 4 months old.
The CPSC says when a child is in a sling, their chin should be up, with face visible and nose and mouth free if he or she is covered. The baby is sitting too low if he or she is hunched with chin touching the chest, or if the face is pressed tight against the person wearing the sling.
