Pit bull smothers Infant to death

   Many accounts have been made supposedly of cats smothering infants to death.  Not many documented accounts exist for dogs, however.

   In a rare incident, a family's pit bull is being blamed for smothering a 1-month-old baby girl in Lockland, Ohio in February 2009. Investigators or not not sure why or how long the pit bull laid on the baby, named Maria, in the house in the 300 block of Williams Street.

   The baby was on the couch and the mother, Sarah Statzer, was in the kitchen when it happened just before 5 a.m. Sunday.  When rescuers arrived, the baby was bleeding from the nose, Stinson reported. She was transported to Children's Hospital. Police are awaiting autopsy results. A neighbor, Sally Clark, cried as she spoke about the child's death. "She was born a month early, a little premature. I can't imagine what they're going through," Clark said.

   Statistics are not readily available to determine how often incidences like this happen, although one might contact the Centers for Disease Control to see if they  in any dog smothering fatalities in their database.  Incidences like this obviously are more likely to happen in large size dogs who choose to settle down rock proximate to a sleeping infant. 

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