Supporting SIDS, Jonathan’s 1st Birthday Fundraiser.

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Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Mill Park’s Simone and Ben Wallace’s warning

Their son passed away at four weeks old from a rare condition and as
his first birthday approaches this Mill Park couple have shared their
story.

Jack Patterson
2 min read
June 10, 2021 - 6:00AM
Whittlesea Leader0 comments

Simone, Benjamin, Jonathan and Alyciena Wallace. The only ever photo
of the 4 of them, Jonathan passed away at 4 weeks old.

Simone and Benjamin Wallace only have one family photo with their son
Jonathan, taken just three days before he died.

Their sweet baby boy, who was born during the height of Victoria’s
Covid lockdown, was found dead in his cot four weeks after he was born
from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in July 2020.

Now as his first birthday approaches, on June 23, Simone and Ben are
trying to raise awareness of the rare condition.

SIDS kills six in every 100,000 babies in Australia every year and is
the sudden, unexpected and unexplained death of an apparently healthy
baby.

The cause is unknown, but believed to be down to a combination of factors.

Most unexpected deaths happen while the child is asleep at night, but
can also happen while the infant is asleep during the day, or,
occasionally, while they are awake.

Mrs Wallace said she found her son when she went to wake him that morning.

“He was in his crib … It probably happened in the morning. They’ve
estimated between at 5am and 6am.

“I didn’t find him until after 7am.”

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She said there was no explanation and the couple couldn’t even put
SIDS on a death certificate, because it wasn’t an “ascertained
reason”.

As Jonathan’s first birthday approaches the Wallace's have started a
fundraiser with the charity Red Nose to raise money for research into
preventing infant deaths.

Jonathan’s death shocked the tight-knit Mill Park community.

“It hit the community pretty big. The whole family lives in the
northern suburbs and we‘re quite a big family,” Mrs Wallace said.

“A lot of my girlfriends came together and organised a GoFundMe at the
start to help pay for all the funeral expenses and our living expenses
… Obviously, both of us were not working at that time.

“It was a really rough, really rough time, my husband took eight weeks
off work to try and grieve, such as we could together.”

Mrs Wallace said processing the tragedy was hard, she wanted to share
their story to raise awareness of the risks of SIDS.

“I actually don‘t mind talking about it,” she said.

“My husband on the other hand, he’s the one that can’t speak about it.
I think counselling has just helped us in different ways.”

“I‘ve got a daughter as well, she’s four. You know, and she was so
excited to have a little brother and then he comes home, and then he
was gone.”

While the cause of SIDS is not fully understood Red Nose recommends
parents always place their baby on their back to sleep, keep their
baby’s face and head uncovered, keep their baby away from cigarette
smoke, ensure a safe sleeping environment and sleep their baby in a
safe cot in their room for the first 6-12 months.

Breastfeeding has also been found to reduce the risks of SIDS.

Mrs Wallace said she has channelled her grief into helping other
families avoid similar tragedies.

“My thing is, this isn’t spoken about enough, especially with kids
themselves … their names are not mentioned enough,” she said.

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“There’s certain days of the year that they commemorate SIDS and the
kids that have passed away from SIDS and it happens to be on my
birthday.”

jack.patterson@news.com.au