This thread's a few weeks old now but frankly I doubt that it's a mass murder scenario. SIDS is only as prevalent and as shocking as it is nowadays because we have a generally much lower infant mortality rate in the Western world. In developing countries SIDS is nowhere near as much of a cultural shock element as it is in the West because children do still die of almost-inexplicable "oh fuck scary" causes, as do mothers during birth, due to a lack of prenatal and postnatal care. It's like the whole infamous (and possibly apocryphal) debate about WW1 helmets "increasing" head injuries. (It "increased" head injuries because dudes who would've died from falling shrapnel/debris became injuries rather than fatalities.)
Statistically speaking SIDS has almost certainly happened since prehistory. Similar deaths happen in primate young. However, the decrease of infant mortality since the 1930s and the increase in general news and media coverage (and the increasing angle of fear to push news media) since the 1970s almost certainly means that SIDS is now The Big scary megababykiller that it seems to be by virtue of focus. Few other diseases or ailments that, historically would've slaughtered the baby rawstyle go untreated in the West now. More genetic issues like asthma are better-treated and better-understood.
Do I believe some of it is women killing their kids? Probably. I'd put it in single digits of percentage though. 2,500 babies dying a year from SIDS in the US means that 2,500 women somehow have to keep their silence about the murder of their infant child, and somehow have to not be found responsible for the murder of their child.
It's easy to say "women defended women proteccted reee wahmen" but suffice to say that CPS does actually investigate child deaths like this, and postmortem also looks into possible causes. SIDS is nowhere near similar to intentional asphyxiation, and even the movie style "gentle asphyxiation" of a person with a pillow is an almost impossible feat without leaving evidenciary bruising, struggle-marks, etc. This is on an adult with much tougher skin and gnarlier muscle. On a soft newborn babby with a skull that can still be dented and unfused knees? If you're smothering the weecunt you're going to leave a mark. It is going to be noticed.
Now, I bet there are cases where women have smothered their kids like this and it's gone unnoticed, but those are exceptions rather than the norm.
Let's extrapolate from the scenario. Mommy has smothered her baby at night. This is the forward chain of events:
- If the kid dies unexpectedly, the father, if present, will be alerted to it inevitably. The father somehow has to avoid becoming suspicious of the mother in any circumstance in their forward relationship, or he will likely raise the alarm, if he is an innocent party and believes, initially, the baby died of SIDS
- The coroner and the baby's doctor, along with the registrar, all have to be aware of the baby's death and will look into it in varying forms. Depending on local authority and sheer circumstance they may or may not find suspicious signs of smothering on/with the corpse. They may have doubts about the provided chain of events, or the lack of physical intervention in the baby's night-time routine after being laid down.
- Babby Babby has to be smothered in a way that is consistent with SIDS or other cot deaths. Despite what you might think, posture-based asphyxiation, especially in a very bruisable, very markable baby, is very specific and very noticable. This is why SIDS is even a concept nowadays. It doesn't tend to leave deep marks. It doesn't leave bruises. It's a result of the baby's own body -- specifically their posture -- crushing its ability to breathe and is not unlike how some people with COPD or sleep apnea can't sleep on their back without choking the supply of oxygen to their body.
- CPS cannot in any circumstance be suspicious of the scenario. If they do become suspicious and alert the police (whom will also be notified of the baby's death, especially if any party has suspicions about the baby's death and the chain of events leading to it), then the mother must somehow withstand interrogation by the police, CPS, and their own loved ones without breaking down, over a long enough period for the case to either be dropped, go to trial, and come out with a not guilty verdict.
So extrapolate this 2,500 times. This chain of events statistically cannot play out every single time perfectly and uninterrupted. 2,500 murders must go completely without any suspicion of murder or foul play. You will rebutt this with the fact that 26,000 murders go unsolved in the US, however, this is again an issue of statistics: Those are noted as murders, deaths by foul play, by the police. In this scenario, for a mother to fake SIDS, the suspicion of murder can never be raised as the house of cards will rapidly collapse.
So, statistically, SIDS cannot just be mass murder of babies by mothers. It is too well-studied (writing this post I found dozens of papers about studies of SIDS and how it correlates to posture, even in the primate kingdoms) and too well-documented to be just mass murder that everyone goes "hah whoops no baby dead somehow magical pixie death". Its prevalence as a cultural facet is a result of dropping mortality rates and an increase of medical knowledge, and ultimately the few "SIDS" deaths that are actually murders are tiny, tiny fragments of the statistic and are probably so infinitesimal that they're often caught out as the crib-smotherings they are.
Yeah, there are definitely cases in impoverished communities with little social support (like Detroit as I don't doubt someone will say) where infant murders happen and go unnoticed. But-- do you really think those would even make it to the statistics for SIDS? Why would the deaths even be reported if it's in a community where nobody will notice, on an authority level?
In addition, everyone here levying the finger of every SIDS death at mothers: Do you think doctors would really be complicit in it by choice? Do you really think they would not be just as horrified as you, if not more, because of their greater proximity to death and infant mortality? Do you really think every single one of those 2,500 mothers can bribe or pay off or intimidate every medical professional involved in their case? Fanny fright does not extend that far.
It's /pol/ bullshit as usual. It does not add up if you actually read the statistical literature that it purports to be based on.
