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6-month-old baby boy dies at home of care worker in Yokohama

33 Comments

A six-month-old baby boy died on Thursday of respiratory arrest while at the home of a city-authorized child care worker in Yokohama, police said.

The incident occurred at around 2:20 p.m. while the infant was asleep at the woman's home in Tsurumi ward. The woman, who is in her 30s, was in the same room as the boy, along with two other children for whom she was caring.

According to police, when she realized the baby was not breathing, she immediately called emergency services. The boy was lying on his back at the time of the incident, but the cause of his respiratory arrest is not yet known. An autopsy has been ordered in an attempt to establish the cause of death.

The woman was working as a carer under a home care system run by Yokohama City Council in adherence with child welfare laws. The city has granted authorization to 52 welfare workers to look after infants under 3 years of age in their own homes. There are currently 165 children being cared for under the system.

© Compiled from news reports

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33 Comments
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Test her for intoxication. Check her mobile phone records. Was she sending emails? History of negligence? The city of Yokohama will surely try to make this go away quietly.

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NetNinja: No benefit of the doubt for her huh? A baby dies (which happens sometimes) and the care giver must be drunk, on drugs or just incompetent.

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Something as simple as a blanket can smother an infant. I hope these child care workers are trained in the procedures for creating a safe sleeping environment for infants.

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why blame the caregiver? it might be SIDS.. RIP little one and I feel so sorry for the caregiver and the baby's families as well..

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I agree with techall, cactusJack and fishy. Sometimes things like this happen. If it was of natural causes, The family and the caregiver must be devestated. My prayers go out to the baby and all involved as well. RIP.

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Poor child. And poor caretaker. What a horrible thing to have happen. I hope they don't persecute her while they're trying to figure out what happened. As fishy said, babies die naturally, sometimes for no reason at all as in the case of SIDS, more often than one thinks.

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yes, seriously, benefit of the doubt people. Sounds like she was caring for lots of children and probably a very good, caring person. Babies sometimes die and it is nobody's fault, in fact most of the time it is nobody's fault.

cactusJack As for training, this isn't even required for full time mothers- do you go round telling mothers "i hope you have had the necessary training to look after that baby"

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She was in the same room as the poor kid, good... but what was she doing in said room??

It could of course be SIDS, but this seems to happen quite often at these private 'care workers', many of whom don't have any kind of license to take care of anyone.

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smithinjapan-- But this easily could have happened with a babysitter or a family friend. Or the parents of the baby themselves. And there's nothing saying she didn't have a license.

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@ smithinjapan - does this happen quite often at private care workers homes? I might be wrong but I haven`t heard of many incidences myself.

She might not have a licence to care for a child, but bear in mind neither do 99% of mothers either, and yet they do it day in and day out.

It may be negligence, but equally if not MORE likely it isnt. She was in the same room as the baby at the time, with only two other children (hardly "lots"), and the moment she realised there was a problem she did exactly the right thing and called emergency services. She was city-authorised which means she had to have been checked out at some point for her competence. She was in her 30s so we are not talking about some young inexperienced woman.

It could of course be sinister and if it is I am more than happy to eat my words, but based on the information given at the moment, it seems to be nothing more than a tragedy and my heart goes out both to the parents and the carer.

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sad story. Very traumatic experience for the care provider.

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If she is city-authorized than she must have had some training and a certification.

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I was once watching a neighbor's dog while he was out of town. The dog was in the same room as me, I was watching tv and petting the dog once ina while. It died quietly right in front of me and I did not notice.

It can happen with a baby too perhaps. I am not a court justice so will nto pass judgment yet.

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NetNinja at 09:44 AM JST - 4th March

Test her for intoxication. Check her mobile phone records. Was she sending emails? History of negligence? The city of Yokohama will surely try to make this go away quietly

I think NETNINJA needs drug testing! And if you aren`t high, then maybe you should get high! Pff!

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RIP! SIDS?

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Wow! The Sherlocks are on fire today! My guess is he choked on something that was in his cot.

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It's a simple case of SIDS, yes, it happens in every country and under any circumstances, probably nothing the caregiver could have done. A sleeping baby has a very light breath, you need to be close to it to become noticeable. Baby beds fitted with sensors are only standard in bith clinics, not in care homes...

Hey Mod btw - the level of the messages on this topic is quite low - I suggest trimming the jokes, etc out...

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If I were one of the 52 welfare workers, I would install a security camera in every room, place the children might use to show the parents that nothing fishy is going on. These things can happen, but it would take time and effort to actually prove innocence. I wouldn't wan't to take any chances, especially with law suits and monster parents being so popular these days...

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**techall at 09:54 AM JST - 4th March

NetNinja: No benefit of the doubt for her huh? A baby dies (which happens sometimes) and the care giver must be drunk, on drugs or just incompetent.**

Actually, I never actually said she was guilty of anything. I did bring up some things that people might speculate and hopefully for her none of the things I mentioned apply. You didn't see me post "Throw her in the slammer and toss the key to the pooch".

Professional negligence resulting in death means everybody loses. Lets say the city of Yokohama wants to do some damage control well the things I mentioned in my first post would be the things I would try to clear her of first. You get my drift? Are you feeling me?

Then the city wouldn't have to worry about a landslide payout. Professional negligence by a private company (Mitsubishi Fuso) gets you nothing. Professional negligence by an official CERTIFIED government approved caretaker....well that's a different story. Government has deep pockets.

It's a bad situation, no doubt. I'm sad to hear that the child died. No amount of money can mend the situation. I'm sure the caretaker is in pain as well. For her sake though I hope she is cleared of anything that might be labeled professional negligence.

That's all**

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If I was a care worker for infants, I would want cameras on all the time. I like hoikuen for our kids that have live feed for parents to view.

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My heart goes out to the care worker and the family.

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can someone clarify for me - is this "care worker" like a babysitter or childminder?

Or is she doing the job for the local government because the parents were somehow negligent?

My first reaction to this was that a "care worker" sounds like someone who is there because of something the parents are doing wrong. Possibly an inappropriate translation, and that they meant childminder instead, but my initial reaction was that if a child needs to be taken into care, (and away from the parents?) the childs death was almost certainly to do with issues beyond the "care workers" control.

For example maternal smoking, drug use and alcohol consumption have ALL been linked with SIDS. As I said this was just my reaction from reading the article, but if anyone could help me clarify I would appreciate it.

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himehentai-

can someone clarify for me - is this "care worker" like a babysitter or childminder?Or is she doing the job for the local government because the parents were somehow negligent?

this woman is a Hoiku Mama -- It's like your home is a small daycare. You are allowed to have up to 3 children under 3 years old. These Hoiku Mamas are very important as there are just not enough daycares out there and while being on the waiting list, parents still have to work but cannot afford to put their babies in a private daycare -- then a Hoiku Mama is a good option. Hoiku mamas have either a nurse license or a child care license, and they work for the city/town.

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TSRnow - If I were one of the 52 welfare workers, I would install a security camera in every room,

Really? Do you think you could afford them working for ¥680 per hour?

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thanks fishy. I hope it was nothing suspicious ... however very sad. my condolences to everyone involved.

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If I were one of the 52 welfare workers, I would install a security camera in every room

LOL - no you wouldnt!

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I don't know what happened ? But you cannot leave a bay alone for more than 5 seconds. I used to work for a daycare/ pre school/ kindergarten / etc.

Be very careful when choosing daycare / Pre School / Kindergarten or Hoiku Mama

I've seen abuse and crazy sh!t from the staff at my school.

Please check carefully and watch how they trest the kids.

Also if your school doesn't have cameras ( bring it up to other parents ) request the school to have cameras !!!!!

Some of these care givers are careless weird or just plan crazy. Be careful

WARNING

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Also if your school doesn't have cameras ( bring it up to other parents ) request the school to have cameras !!!!!

The human race has survived for 200,000 years without cameras installed in every room in daycare. Cretin.

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As has been posted, even if the child had 50 cameras focused on it in the room, the problems wouldn't have been visual until the baby turned blue from hypoxia. Add to this the fact that the caregiver had two other children to tend to. I would imagine she was trained in infant CPR, but from what I understand, SIDS (if that's what it was) doesn't respond to CPR well.

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Its a tragedy, few years ago my friends 6 month old child died the same way in Gunma in child care center. RIP

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SIDS usually happens in the child's own home. This woman was in the same room as the sleeping babies--there's not much else she could have done to prevent the death.

My mother used to do this kind of home daycare when we were kids. She had 7-8 kids to look after, plus her own three, so she would have the infants nap in a crib in the bedroom and just check on them every 15 minutes or so. That's about all you can do, other than making sure that there is nothing in the crib to smother the baby, and that he/she is positioned correctly. Most mothers don't sit leaning over their babies when they sleep. SIDS still happens even when you do everything right.

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Disillusioned, DentShop probably I would though every room may have been an exaggeration. Web Cams are easy to come by and cheap, you could download recording devices on-line. You may not get full coverage of kids running around, but a baby taking a nap would be easy.

Something to share the parents so that they get their IYASHI ;)

BTW, are you serious about 680yen/hour? Wow, that is more like volunteer work.

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terrible. goes to show you'd better look after your own kids yourself

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