Mom ‘co-sleeping’ with 5-month-old fatally smothers her, TX cops say. She’s sentenced

A 27-year-old mother was sentenced to four decades in prison after she was accused of smothering her 5-month-old daughter while “co-sleeping” in a bed, killing her, Texas officials said.

For over eight hours, the infant “lay lifeless” in the bed in Blanco County, according to prosecutors.

Danielle Ivy Dechert pleaded guilty to injury to a child – recklessly causing death/serious bodily injury on Aug. 30 and was sentenced to 40 years in prison, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a Sept. 16 news release.

The mother was also intoxicated with an “illegal substance,” prosecutors said, though they did not disclose what the substance was.

In 2014, Dechert was convicted of evading in a motor vehicle and endangering a child, according to the attorney general, and Paxton said this increased her sentence.

“ Cosleeping is when a parent and infant sleep in close proximity,” according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. This can mean sharing a bed or sleeping in the same room, the AAP said.

The AAP does not recommend bed sharing because the infant is at risk of suffocating.

Blanco County is about 55-mile drive west from Austin.

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