An 18-year-old mother has spoken of the heartbreaking moment she found her three-month-old son dead in his cot from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Taylor Batchen Claypool discovered Jayden with blue skin and his eyes wide open at their home in Ogden, Utah, on 10 September.
She immediately called 999, and paramedics gave her and her husband Jace hope by claiming the infant had a pulse rate of 66 beats per minute. However, doctors at the hospital later told the family that Jayden had actually died two hours before she had found him.
Speaking through tears, Taylor recalled: 'His eyes were open and he was just sitting there.' She added: 'When we arrived 45 minutes later, at the hospital we were informed that he never had a pulse that he passed at least two hours before I had found him.'
Taylor said she had occasionally noticed Jayden struggling to breathe before his death, with his mouth turning blue when he cried. She now wishes she had monitored him more closely. SIDS, formerly known as cot death, is the unexplained death of an apparently healthy baby under one year old, usually during sleep.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help pay for Jayden's funeral expenses. The family is devastated by the loss, with Taylor saying: 'I have cried so much, I physically can't cry anymore.'
