A mom has taken to Facebook to share a warning to all parents and caregivers after she woke up one morning to find that her son had tragically passed away overnight.
Jennifer Ranger of British Columbia bravely took to Facebook to reveal that she had experienced every parent's worst nightmare. Now she is hoping her story can help save the lives of other children.
Starting the heartbreaking 2017 post with a trigger warning, Ranger explains that while everybody is celebrating, she is grieving on what would have been her son's birthday.
Recalling the perfectly normal evening of October 16, 2008, the mom writes: "I put my 2-year-old son to bed in his big boy bed which was pushed up against the wall, complete with a bed rail on the side open to the room. I tucked him in and said goodnight.
"I checked on him at 1 am and saw him sleeping soundly facing the bed rail but still in the middle of the bed. I went to sleep myself.
"A little after 8 am, I woke up and went downstairs. He wasn't stirring yet so I took the time to put the coffee on and go to the bathroom."
However, the family's world would be changed forever after Jennifer decided to check in on her young son.
"I went into his room to wake him and he wasn't in his bed," she recalls. "As I looked for him, I quickly started to panic and then found him between his bed and his wall, with just his head above the mattress.
"I pulled the bed away and grabbed him only to find every parent's worst nightmare."
Jennifer explains that her two-year-old son had passed away at approximately 3:00AM as a result of positional asphyxiation, as she explains: "In layman terms, he became wedged between his bed and the wall and was unable to free himself."
Per Crisis Prevention, positional asphyxiation (or positional asphyxia) is "a deadly condition that can occur when a person being restrained can’t get enough oxygen. This lack of oxygen can lead to disturbances in the rhythm of the heart."
Like every mom out there, Jennifer says that she thought she was doing everything she could to keep her son safe - having both a baby monitor and a bed rail installed in her son's room.
"Everyone I knew (my own parents included) had pushed their young children's beds up against the walls," she writes. "I can still remember the stinging guilt that hit me when the coroner released the report and my son's cause of death was 'positional asphyxiation secondary to unsafe sleeping arrangements.'"
Explaining why she chose to share her story, Jennifer writes: "In light of a recent PSA about baby blankets, I felt like I should tell our story.
"If it saves just one child's life, I will be thankful."
She concludes her heartbreaking post by writing: "Please, make sure your young child's bed is at least 12 inches from other pieces of furniture or walls in their room. It may not be aesthetically pleasing, but it is the safest way.
"He was 2. He could climb stairs up and down, he could build towers out of blocks and chase birds, and was learning to swim. You never think it can happen to your child."
Since sharing her post in July of 2017, it has received over 132,000 shares on Facebook, and over 30,000 comments.
There is no doubt Jennifer's story will have helped save lives.
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