Three-week-old baby suffocates to death in his mom's sling, coroner report reveals

Tattika Dunn's three-week-old boy, Harvey McGlinn, was found motionless when he was unwrapped from his mother's fabric baby sling at a community health centre on the Central Coast. Although the baby immediately received CPR, the medical team couldn't revive him, and he died in 2019.

The New South Wales Ministry of Health coroner published their findings on Thursday that the infant's untimely cause of death was "the position of Harvey's neck." The coroner's report said, "The evidence establishes that the position of Harvey's neck, with his chin on his chest, compromised his airway. Harvey's relatively low weight may have resulted in less muscle and head control resulting in difficulty in maintaining a patent airway from the way that Harvey was positioned in the sling."

The Daily Telegraph reported that Dunn, who has two other children, did not want to be involved in the inquest. The outlet also said that present findings do not indicate any breach of "duty of care."

Dunn was interviewed about her newborn's death in a 2019 show of Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O, one of Australia's biggest radio shows. The mother said she did not notice anything different with baby Harvey during their morning routine.

She remembers falling to the floor and how she "started screaming" when her neonatal nurse told her that Harvey wasn't breathing during their scheduled visit. "I was on the floor watching my baby try to get resuscitated, and I could do nothing to help him," she recalled.

Dunn also shared that she put Harvey inside the baby sling because he didn't like being laid flat and would wail when left in his baby carriage. "Every time I laid him flat he would scream straight away. It was like he was in pain. I would say it to the nurses... He never went in his pram," she said.

Following the baby's death, the NSW Health director of maternity, child and family told the inquest that she believes baby slings should be banned to fully eliminate the risk of suffocation. However, the inquest also noted that this would be difficult as slings are used by people with disabilities and are a custom of certain cultures.