Jizelle Rivera: Another 'Unsafe Sleep Environment' Death

I knew there would be more infant deaths from unsafe sleeep environments in Milwaukee in 2010, but I didn't expect another to occur so soon after baby Megan Borchart was reported dead.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Yet another infant - the fourth since the first of the year - has died after being exposed to an unsafe sleep environment, the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office reported Tuesday.

Jizelle Rivera, who was 4 months and 6 days old, died Monday after an afternoon nap at her home in the 4600 block of S. 20th St.

"Investigators do not believe the death of the infant to be suspicious at this time," Milwaukee police Sgt. Mark Stanmeyer said. "We are awaiting the medical examiner's report to make a final decision."

While family members have given several conflicting accounts of what happened to Jizelle, an autopsy found no signs of abuse, according to the medical examiner's report.

The cause of Jizelle's death remains undetermined pending the results of a toxicology examination.

According to the medical examiner's report, investigators initially were told that the Jizelle's 22-year-old mother, Jelista Marie Rivera, placed the child in her crib at noon. Her other children alerted her 40 minutes later that the child was unresponsive, and Rivera called 911.

The crib contained an adult pillow, a box of wet wipes, a small cardboard box, a couple of baby bottles, a baby blanket and stuffed animals.

City health officials, who launched a citywide safe sleep campaign Dec. 28, say the safest place for children to sleep is on their backs in their cribs. The cribs should contain no toys, no pillows, no bumper pads, no quilts and no blankets.

In a different account, the mother told rescue workers and medical staff that she brought the infant a bottle and noticed the baby was gasping. She brought the baby downstairs, showed her to Rivera's 52-year-old mother, Evelyn Figueroa, who put the baby back in her crib and they called 911.

A rescue worker said the mother told him that Figueroa was baby-sitting the infant while she kept an appointment.

Jose J. Rodriguez, father of the infant's two siblings, told police that he was watching the children while Rivera went to an appointment and that he had laid on an adult bed with the infant on his chest.

Who knows what happened?

All the different accounts are cause for suspicion.

Sometimes a specific cause of death can't be determined, but there's no question that some of these babies are dying of neglect and irresponsible parenting and caregiving.

There needs to be some accountability here.