Navaeh McIntosh: Milwaukee Baby Dead from Co-sleeping

Add 6-week-old Navaeh McIntosh to Milwaukee's inexcusably long list of co-sleeping deaths in 2009.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A 6-week-old girl was found dead Christmas morning after spending the night co-sleeping with her mother and her 2-year-old brother.

The mother, Africa Shaw, 27, told investigators that her daughter's lips were blue and her body cold when Shaw woke about 8:30 a.m. Friday, according to a medical examiner's report. The cause of the child's death has not been determined.

Shaw told investigators she fed the child, Navaeh McIntosh, Thursday evening, and then placed the infant on a baby blanket on Shaw's queen-size bed. She covered the baby with a loosely knit baby blanket. Shaw slept with two pillows and a sheet. Her 2-year-old son, who slept at the foot of the bed, was covered with a blanket, according to a medical examiner's report.

Shaw told investigators that her 10-year-old son slept on the floor at the foot of the bed and that her 6-year-old daughter slept on the floor beside her.

The mother, who according to the report is employed as a certified day-care teacher at Nakeema's Wonderland, 4117 N. 7th St., told investigators she played cards and drank two beers before going to bed with her children, according to the report.

Shaw is a certified day-care teacher?

She should have known better than to sleep with her infant AND 2-year-old son in the same bed.

I've lost count. Is this the sixth co-sleeping death in Milwaukee this year? I think it's at least the sixth.

This negligence is shameful. The deaths of these babies are 100 percent preventable.