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One-year-old girl dies at daycare center following nap time

32 Comments

A one-year-old girl died on Thursday after staff at a daycare center were unable to wake her up following nap time.

Police said the girl had taken a nap alongside about a dozen other children in the classroom. At 4 p.m., emergency services received a call from an employee saying, "There's a girl here who has gone very pale and we can't wake her up."

Emergency services personnel rushed to the scene and found the girl in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead a short time later.

According to police, there were no external signs of injury and the girl was not known to be suffering from any illnesses. Police are continuing to investigate the circumstances that led to her death.

© Compiled from news reports

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

32 Comments
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oh my goodness how awful for everyone - the parents, the teachers and the other students.

It sounds like "SIDS" (Sudden infant death syndrome) but I so hope there was no foul play or abuse. RIP little girl, and my very deepest sympathies to her parents and the teachers.

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Police should not investigate, doctors should. Poor little girl.

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Sad!

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RIP, little girl.

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Very sad, and very strange. I expect the medical examiner will be busy with this one.

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Sad to hear. RIP lil one.

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This is so shocking a sad. How hard for the staff and the parents... may the little girl rest in peace.

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WHAT ON EARTH IS A ONE YR OLD DOING IN KINDERGARTEN!!!!!!

My bet is the baby suffocated, again I repeat what the hell is a 1yr old doing piled up inside with a bunch of I assume 4-5yr olds.........sad & likely some negligence involved!

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I think most likely a translation error and they mean a Hoikuen but there are private creches that take in kids that young and younger.

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A hoikuen is like a nursery or daycare center, not a kindergarten. Very unfortunate incident. Could be SIDS, as it has been known to occur even after 12 months. And GW, shame on you for blaming the employees of "negligence." You don't know anything about what went on here.

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GW what an awful thing to say ... I suppose you would rather the parents just left this child home alone like thousands of other parents in Japan? So then you could blame the parents for doing so? Some people HAVE to work in order to live. Not everyone can stay home and be a shufu until their child is in school.

SIDS is rare, but the number one cause of death in children up to 18 months. Suffocation would generally have external injuries ... and there wern't any. The very vast majority of hoikuens are wonderful, and there is nothing to suggest this girl was abused or neglected.

I hope you never have to experience the horror of losing a child GW.

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What an awful thing to happen. I think it may be a hoikuen, although some kindergartens do have a hoikuen attached, but in all cases kids ARE separated by age group, especially for nap times, so I would be very surprised if this little one was "piled up with a bunch of 4-5 year olds".

On the details given, it sounds like a very tragic case of SIDS or possibly an underlying undiagnosed condition, and it sounds like the staff did exactly the right thing. Nap times are generall 1ish to 3ish, but if a child is sleeping peacefully it is not unusual at all to allow them to continue sleeping, especially if they have not been well.

I just feel so sorry for the staff that had to deal with it - that experience can tramatise you for life - as well as the poor parents.

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Is it common practice for children that young to be in kindergarten? Seems very young to me, and an unreasonable reponsibility to burden the teachers with. Very sad for all concerned.

Moderator: The story has been corrected to indicate it was a daycare center.

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mackemack-

Is it common practice for children that young to be in kindergarten? Seems very young to me,

This is a simple translation mistake. This incident happened at a DAYCARE, not a kidnergarten.

It is sad and I'm sorry for the baby's parents and the caregivers...

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Smothered, sounds like to me. This story reads :

Police said the girl had taken a nap alongside about a dozen other children in the classroom.

It doesn't say alone, or separated by age, but alongside.

1 year old babies should be given more attention than this.

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miamum-

I think it may be a hoikuen, although some kindergartens do have a hoikuen attached, but in all cases kids ARE separated by age group, especially for nap times, so I would be very surprised if this little one was "piled up with a bunch of 4-5 year olds".

you're right.. this happened at a hoikuen. and I actually have an aswer for you why these kids were taking a nap all together. the government authorized daycares (ninka hoikuen) have rooms for each age group while non-authorized daycares (muninka hoikuen) don't have to meet the government's basic standard and often put all age groups in one or two rooms and they don't have specific regulation for how many caregivers for how many kids and etc.

in authorized daycares (ninka hoikuen), babies sleep in one room and there are certain number of caregivers (with degree in childcare or a nurse)with them the whole time the babies are aleep.

non-authorized daycares (muninka hoikuen), as long as there is one person with the degree in childcare or nurse, other caregivers are not required to have a degree nor certificate in childcare. And most of the times, these daycares have fewer number of caregivers looking after children.

I am not saying all non-authorized daycares are bad.. there are good ones and they are certainly needed as there are not enough authorized daycares and there are lots of people waiting to get their kids in the authorized daycares (they put their kids in non-authorized daycares temporarily while on waiting list)..

after all, I have to say, that this was a sad sad incident.. RIP baby..

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Every working parent's nightmare. Poor baby. I hope it was an undiagnosed condition, and not anything the day care centre staff did or didn't do.

Thoughts go to both the parents and the staff.

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Why shouldn't a child of one be in a kindergarten. Many cater for children as young a two. This is a tragic situation but I very much doubt it has anything to do with the child only being one. I personally went to Nursery school from zero and was amongst children from 0 to 5 as my mother and father were working. In fact when I was 17 I actually worked alongside the lady who used to change my nappy.

If a child is sleeping then it would be very difficult to notice strait away if they are having any health problems. I assume the children were all being supervised and the staff acted as soon as they could.

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Why shouldn't a child of one be in a kindergarten

Just to explain - I don`t think it is a question of whether or not the child should be in a facility like daycare, or with its mother. People are just questioning the term "kindergarten" as opposed to "daycare". Kindergartens in Japan start from 3 (sometimes 4) and some have daycare attached to them so DO take children as young as 0.

The confusion is in the "type" of facility it was, and that the different terminology means different things in different countries, that`s all. It has nothing to do with the age old debate of working/stay at home. The only question people have over the age of the child is that it could have been something related to cot death which can affect babies up to age two (although thankfully is much rarer after age 1)

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I'll never forget when a woman I knew who had been running a daycare for five years proudly announced she just got her daycare license.

Nonetheless, in this case it sounds like the poor little girl just had something seriously wrong with her. RIP, little one.

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SIDS is scary stuff. Mine are old enough not to worry. I had a friend who's baby died of SIDS. Destroyed her marriage :(

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bicultural, himenhentai

lighten up will ya, JT has gone & edited their blurb here after I posted and I only speculated on what MIGHT have happened. I certainly hope it was some rare health problem & not negligence of any sort but when you read they have babies sleeping with kids a larger tot cud very easily roll on top of the baby & go unnoticed & you have a tragedy. Which I wud not wish on any one!

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I reckon I have worked it out. She died because her heart stopped. Too much speculation in some of the posts in this thread. It is impossible to conclude anything based on this article. Just a sad article. Condolences to the parents and staff of the daycare center.

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Sounds like a classic case of SIDS. My youngest has been in daycare since he was one. They do not stack them on top of each other as some are saying that she suffocated. It was probably just her time to go. RIP little one.

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Maybe choked to death from remains of some regurgitated milk that had curdled and blocked the airways when she was sleeping?? Some children (including some adults) have a condition (reflux ?) whereby food would "resurface" a while after having been swallowed. It would then be re-swallowed back in, or thrown out as it would usually with children. But in the case of this little girl, it could have happened when she was asleep and did not throw up, leaving the milk to curdle and then blocked her airways?? Anyway, I am not a medical personal, just speculating.

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What a horrible, horrible news! I can not imagine the pain and suffering, the hell the anguish the parents of this 1 year old little baby angel are going through. RIP little baby girl from Saitama.

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oh. my. god....how awful. I work at an English school for ages 2-5. We have a 3 year old who was born premature and is quite delicate. Last summer we were having pool time (we put 10 cms of water in a kiddy pool and they play with buckets and stuff) and all of a sudden, he just fainted. I grabbed him and pulled him out...he turned blue. The two owners of the school have CPR training and they resuscitated him and called an ambulance and the parents. He is fine, the doctors said he was not drowning, and that he may have a kind of anemia and he has fainted since at his house, the same way. We were all so shaken, especially me because I pulled him out and he was limp, with his eyes rolled back. These things can happen in a second. I hope that they did have the right teacher-child ratio even if they are unauthorized (we usually have 2 teachers to 8 kids for the 2 years old group) but even if you are doing everything right, you cannot control a child's body. I feel so horrible for the teachers, parents, and other children.

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oh no! that's every parents' worst nightmare! condolences to mum and dad :-( sympathies to the staff members as well. they must've been so frightened. childcare workers are very hardworking and mostly underpaid. ontop of that, most staff really love the kids they care for. it's a hands-on job with lots of hazards (catching colds from kids, hurting back from carrying babies/kids, etc.). poor bub. so sad for everyone involved.

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No evidence of wrongdoing by the day care center - at least so far - so I will give them the benefit of the doubt and guess this is just a case of SIDS. It's always tragic when an infant dies even though everyone around the child was doing everything in their power to help the child grow up healthy. RIP little one.

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Why do people have to speculate on the cause? It's a tragedy and the cause is yet unknown - best not to jump to conclusions. Very sad for the family...

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the reason we speculate so much on this site is because many blurbs are sorely lacking in info, sometimes its just not available others because well mediocre reporting & of course the J-tradition of self censorship that permeates all media here....

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This is truly terrible. Shame on the operators!

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