JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Officers are investigating after a 2-month-old girl died while sleeping in the same bed as her parents, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
According to the police report, the baby, her mother and her father all went to sleep in the same bed Saturday. The child's father told police when he woke up in the morning, the child was "lying on her back" and "blue in the face."
The baby girl was rushed to Memorial Hospital where staff told News4Jax she died. The medical examiner's office said an autopsy will be performed, which should reveal how the child died within six to eight weeks.
Dr. Peter Gillespie with the Jacksonville Medical Examiner's office said co-sleeping is a very common cause of death.
"From our point of view, it is a big deal because we see the end result. We see the consequences of babies who, unfortunately, are deceased due to co-sleeping."
Gillespie said co-sleeping deaths are preventable, but can happen in minutes.
"You will rapidly lose consciousness within 15 or 20 seconds, and after that, four or five minutes -- irreversible brain damage and then death occurs shortly after," Gillespie said.
The Jacksonville Medical Examiner's Office confirmed 11 co-sleeping deaths in 2017, 10 in 2016 and six in 2015.
The medical examiner's office has not determined what officially cause the infant's death but it wants to remind people of co-sleeping dangers. People who are overweight and people who are intoxicated increase the risk of having a co-sleeping death with their child.