Grieving Mom: Please Don't Put Babies to Bed With Blankets

A devastated mother took to social media to discuss the painful details surrounding her baby's death after critics began speculating that vaccines were to blame, Good Housekeeping reports. "To those who keep commenting and messaging trying to blame vaccines for our sons death—stop," Jordan DeRosier wrote on Facebook Tuesday, the day after the 7-month-old's death, which she had posted about on social media. "Initially I had not wanted to explain the detailed circumstances of his death because of my guilt and the fear of condemnation from others. But I will not allow anyone to try and place blame where it does not belong." DeRosier, who is well-known in the handmade and small shops communities, went on to explain that little Sloan was put to bed for the final time with two blankets. He somehow pulled one of those blankets through the rails of his crib and got stuck in it, leading to his death.

In another gut-wrenching post, DeRosier told the story of how she found Sloan, who was the family's rainbow baby after two miscarriages and fertility treatments, the following morning when she went to wake him up, one of the blankets wrapped around his head. Paramedics couldn't save him, but DeRosier decided to share the details in an effort to save other parents the same grief: "Please do not put your babies to bed with a blanket," she writes. "I thought because he was crawling, standing on his own, and climbing, that he would be fine with a blanket. ... I will NEVER stop feeling responsible. I will relive this for the rest of my life knowing EXACTLY what I could have done differently." The post has been shared more than 13,000 times, and the story is being picked up widely in the media, with many outlets pointing to the AAP's safe sleep guidelines for infants in an effort to spread awareness. A YouCaring fundraiser has been set up for the family. (More child death stories.)