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Greg Eans/The Daily Reflector/ALL
Jeremy and Lindsay Jones stand in a garden in memory of their infant son, Ayden, at Christ’s Church.

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Ayden Jones

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Remembering lives lost

Events draw attention to dangers of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

By Kim Grizzard
The Daily Reflector

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Little Ayden Jones was not named in honor of the community. But for the second time since the infant’s death, the community is honoring him.

A candlelight vigil is planned Thursday in memory of Ayden, who died Aug. 25. Family, Career and Community Leaders of America and the North Carolina Healthy Start Foundation are sponsoring the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day event at Ayden-Grifton High School, where Ayden’s mother is a teacher.

Lindsay Jones was in the classroom the first day of school when she got the news that a child care worker had found her 4-month-old son unresponsive in his crib. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome had taken her only child.

In the days that followed, teens helped to bring comfort to Lindsay and her husband, Jeremy, a math teacher at South Central High School. At Ayden-Grifton, where Lindsay has taught English for three years, students wore white shirts and baby blue ribbons and gathered in an assembly to pay tribute.

“I walked into the gym, and I saw this sea of white and blue,” Lindsay said. “I was amazed at their selflessness and their generosity.

“They didn’t know what to do,” she said, “but they wanted to do something.”

Two members of the school’s FCCLA chapter wanted to do something more. Samantha Tripp and Whitney Stocks began making efforts to educate their fellow students and members of the community about SIDS and to raise funds for research and understanding of the disorder.

“She’s one of my favorite teachers,” Stocks said. “When her baby died, it just tore me up.”

“It (SIDS) really does happen to people.”

Marta Pirzadeh of the Healthy Start Foundation said SIDS is the leading cause of death of infants from 1 month to 1 year old. According to the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics, SIDS was blamed for 136 infant deaths across the state last year.

Pirzadeh will be among the speakers at Thursday’s vigil. Though she does not generally take time from her job as coordinator of the Infant Sleep Campaign to attend community events, Pirzadeh wanted to be a part of the student-led initiative.

“I was very motivated by the students who are organizing it to get there,” she said. “I was really impressed by their passion.”

So was Sue Butler, a neonatal clinical nurse specialist at Pitt County Memorial Hospital. Butler came to Ayden-Grifton on Monday to speak to FCCLA members about SIDS. It was the first time in more than 20 years of nursing that she’d been asked to speak at a school on the topic of infant deaths.

“This is the first group we’ve gotten this much interest from,” Butler said. “This is very unusual. SIDS is not on the news every day.”

Samantha Tripp, an Ayden-Grifton senior, had never even heard of SIDS until she heard the news about Ayden.

Born April 27, the blue-eyed boy was everything Lindsay and Jeremy had wanted to complete their family. They had picked out his name years before, perhaps as early as their days as high school sweethearts in Rocky Mount. Brooks was Jeremy’s middle name. Aidan was a boy’s name that Lindsay especially liked, but she wanted a different spelling.

“(At the time) I never knew Ayden, North Carolina, existed,” she said. “I just thought it was a pretty name. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that we spelled it that way. Every time I drive through Ayden, I can’t help but think of him.”

Ayden appeared healthy in every way. Alert and happy, he arrived at many of the milestones of infancy early. He could roll over when he was 3 months old.

“After he was born, when we took him to the doctor, the doctor said he could not be more perfect,” Lindsay said. “Every checkup was as perfect as you could hope for.”

Pirzadeh said SIDS affects otherwise healthy infants. More boys than girls are affected, and SIDS is more common among African-American and Native American infants than caucasian babies.

Lindsay knew the statistics. Like many first-time mothers, she had read everything she could get her hands on about pregnancy and infant care.

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Crystal

10/14/2009 10:11:13 PM

THIS IS SOO TERRIBLE!! i AM SO SORRY FOR THEIR LOST. i OFFER MY CONDOLENCES. i WOULD HAVE BEEN DEVASTATED

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