by Whitney Barthel posted in Parenting

?A couple hours later I woke up and Charlie was gone.? Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Sam Hanke spoke openly to Fatherly about the tragic death of his 4-week-old son.

In an effort to give Hanke?s wife Maura a break, the doctor who specializes in babies and children told his wife, a kindergarten teacher, to go rest. Hanke states, ?I just sat down on the couch to watch some TV and he was kind of sitting on my chest. We were just hanging out and I nodded off...A couple hours later I woke up and Charlie was gone.?
Knowing the Hanke?s background with children makes this story especially shocking.

Since the death of their son, Sam and Maura have set out to inform new parents of the inherent dangers of co-sleeping by starting a foundation called Charlie's Kids. A report by the CDC in 2015 reports that 25 percent of the 3,700 deaths due to Sudden Unexpected Infant Death Syndrome (SUIDS) were cause by accidental suffocation and strangulation while sleeping.
A separate study also found that co-sleeping with your baby on a couch or sofa increases the likelihood of SUIDS by 67-fold.
What has many baffled is the fact that since 1990, cases of SIDS have dramatically gone down, while deaths due to suffocation and strangulation during sleep have been steadily sneaking up.

Dr. Hanke and wife Maura, along with several other experts, think this phenomenon might be due to the social acceptability of dads sleeping with babes.
Shontavia Jackson Johnson, ...