While mom was getting a tan, her kids baked in the car. Yolanda Kruse, 24, of Racine, Wis., allegedly left her one-week-old son and her 22-month-old daughter in her car while she visited a tanning salon, WKOW TV News reported. Even though the windows were rolled down, the temperature inside the car reached up to 102 degrees, police said.
A salon employee apparently heard the toddler crying and called cops. Kruse has been charged with two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment of minors and could face up to 15 years in prison. It wasn’t reported how long she had been in the salon or how her tan looked.
If you smoked while pregnant or in your child’s early years, your kid has been “biological primed” to become a smoker as a teen or young adult, according to researchers at the University of Arizona.
“Somehow smoke is changing the brain chemistry,” said Dr. Roni Grad, an associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the university, according to HealthDay News. “If you are exposed to smoking prenatally or in the early years of life, you are much more likely to be a chronic smoker at the age of 22.”
The researchers found that children exposed to smoking in utero or as a baby were four times more likely to become smokers than other children. Those results stuck even if the mother quit smoking by the time the child was school-age.
For free resources to help you quit smoking, click here.
…Emma for girls, and Jacob for boys. In 2008, Emma unseated formerly most popular name Emily, according to the Social Security Administration, while Jacob continued its 10th straight year as number one.
In other baby name news, Barack is now the 2,409th most popular name for boys, jumping a record 10,126 spots, according to the Associated Press. Miley, thanks to Miley Cyrus, is now the 127th most popular name for girls, moving up 152 spots.
In 2008, Emma was followed by Isabella, Emily, Madison and Ava, while Jacob was followed by Michael, Ethan, Joshua and Daniel.
A Texas grandmother was injured, and her 7-month-old grandson, Izaiah Gregory Cox, died on Tuesday after the grandmother’s two pit bulls attacked.
The grandmother, whose name was not released, went to the kitchen to fix a bottle for the baby, and returned to find the two dogs biting the child, according to the Associated Press. Although the San Antonio grandma attempted to rescue Izaiah by slashing the dogs with a knife, it was too late.
Police later shot and killed both dogs.
It’s rare that the stories about kids and cars on Minor Troubles have a happy ending, but here’s a bright spot in the usual sea of despair.
In Orlando, Fl., a mother accidentally hit her infant, who was sitting in a high-chair behind the car. The nine-month-old girl fell out of the high-chair and landed on the car’s muffler but escaped injury, according to WCTV.
The family was sitting in the carport while a mechanic was working on the car. When the child’s mother decided to turn the car off, it rolled backward into baby Loreena Morejan’s high-chair, knocking her to the pavement. Neighbors rescued the child, as well as the driver’s husband, which the car had pinned.
Police said no charges are likely to be filed.
A 13-month-old girl fell out of a window on the second story of an apartment building in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., on Monday.
The child was playing with a kitchenette set with her mother when she pushed her head against the screen on the window and it popped out, according to the Orange County Register.
While the tot suffered bruising on her forehead, she did not sustain serious injuries. The incident was deemed “just a complete accident” by a responding officer, and the mother will not be charged.
Each year, more than 100 children in the United States die because of fall-related injuries, according to Safe Kids USA. About 2.3 million fall-related injuries are reported annually. Falls are the leading cause of unintentional injury for all kids ages 14 and under.
A car thief in Smyrna, Ga., accidentally kidnapped a six-month-old girl while stealing a BMW on Friday morning from a residential garage.
The father of the child strapped his daughter into the car seat, then went back into the family’s house to get a credit card, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. That’s when a thief jumped into the car, and drove off with the girl.
Fortunately, it appears the perp was not interested in adding kidnapping to his list of crimes; the 2003 BMW 330i and the baby inside it were both abandoned a few minutes later. The child was unharmed.
“You think you’re safe in your home in the garage,” said Cobb police spokesman Nathan McCreary. “You’re supposed to feel safe, and it’s a shame you can’t. You always have to be careful.”
Photo by Jeff Wilcox
Her car became stranded on an icy highway in the Denver area, where it was 2 degrees.
Cassandra Garcia called 911 at around 11:19 p.m. Monday, and an ambulance arrived in six minutes, the Rocky Mountain News reported. But the roads were too dangerous to transport her safely and quickly to the hospital. So rescue workers set up a makeshift birthing room in the ambulance.
Baby Daniel came into the world with a healthy scream. Mother and child were then taken to a hospital.
Daniel wasn’t the only Denver newborn who couldn’t wait for a hospital this week. Dominique Trevino was riding the bus through downtown Denver on Tuesday when she started having contractions, the Denver Post reported. She got off at the next stop, which happened to be the library.
Baby girl Sariah was born on the first floor of the Denver public library’s main branch, just as an ambulance arrived. No word yet on whether she’s gotten her own library card.
Arielle Smith didn’t want to be disturbed while she was watching TV, prosecutors said.
Smith was caring for the 5-month-old infant and his toddler brother in her New Orleans home when the children became too “rambunctious and interfering with her television show,” according to court documents. So Smith, 19, put the toddler in a separate room with her own son. She then went to the laundry area, removed clothing from the dryer, put the baby in it and started the machine, the Times-Picayune reported.
Little Andre Jenkins was in the dryer for three minutes, authorities said. He suffered skull fractures and extensive burns and died at the scene.
After the dryer stopped, Smith took out the baby and put her clothes back in. It was not reported whether the TV program, which was unidentified, had also concluded.
When police arrived, Smith told them that a pot of boiling water fell on Andre. Later, she said that she hid Andre in the dryer as she played hide-and-seek with the other kids.
Smith was indicted Thursday on a charge of second-degree murder for the Sept. 11 incident, the Times-Picayune reported. A judge has ruled that she was mentally competent at the time of the incident and can stand trial.
As far back as six years ago, parents complained to federal officials and crib maker Delta Enterprise that the cribs were breaking in ways that could trap and kill babies, according to a Chicago Tribune investigation published today.
In 2002, a mother in Oregon rescued her baby boy after his head was pinned between the mattress and drop side of his Delta crib. Two years later, another little boy wasn’t so lucky. The Long Island, N.Y., infant died when his crib’s railing popped off its track, trapping him between the railing and mattress. In 2005, a Georgia boy suffocated to death in a similar incident.
But a recall wasn’t seriously considered until a girl in Georgia asphyxiated in a reassembled crib with a missing safety peg in 2007. Earlier this year, a boy in Florida died when a peg jammed. Although the Consumer Product Safety Commission sent investigators to each report, officials only saw the pattern of crib dangers after creating a database this summer.
Finally, in October, Delta recalled a record 1.6 million cribs. But in the recall annoucement, only the last two deaths were mentioned.
The family of six-old-old Bobby Cirigliano of Long Island told the Tribune that Delta should have used his death as an early warning. “If Delta would have acted in 2004 when they found out about my child’s death, these other kids would be alive today,” said father Robert Cirigliano, who is suing the company for wrongful death.
Jennifer Patzkowski, the woman who managed to save her baby from death, had filed a complaint with the safety commission in 2002. She said that when she called Delta, “the representative was defensive and denied that there could be a problem with the crib,” a commission investigator wrote in a report.
Company spokesman Jack Gutt declined to comment to the Tribune about the Patzkowski’s case. In a statement, he said, “When properly assembled, our cribs are perfectly safe.”
Consumer advocates say that cribs have become the most dangerous item in a baby’s nursery. See previous Minor Troubles postings about other crib recalls and safety tips here.
