Amber Scorah took three months maternity leave after her son was born last year. Even though her work’s leave policy is more generous than many other employers, Scorah didn’t feel like three months was enough time off. She struggled leaving baby Karl, even asking her employer if it was possible to take more time off. It wasn't if she wanted to keep her job. So, like most working moms in America, she took him to day care. When she went back at lunch to check on her son, he was dead. You might have read her heartbreaking story on a New York Times parenting blog last winter.
"I saw my son unconscious, splayed out on a soft changing table. His lips and the area around his mouth were blue, and the day-care owner was performing CPR on him, incorrectly," she wrote in the article.
The cause of death was inconclusive.
Ali Dodd’s story isn’t much different than Scorah's. Dodd’s son, Shepard, suffocated in a car seat when a childcare worker didn’t check on him. It was his sixth day at the day care. He was “still too little to lift up his own head,” she said. Dodd didn't get any paid leave off. Shepard went to day care at barely 11-weeks-old.
