Dad Busy Playing With His Phone Didn’t Realise His Baby Was Dying
He had become too engrossed in a football game.
By Samantha Khor — 15 Jul 2016, 06:02 PM
A Singaporean man's fixation on his mobile phone proved to be fatal for his baby daughter, as he became too engrossed in a game to notice that she was choking while he was feeding her
Three-month-old Reyhana Qailah died on 12 October last year after her father got too caught up playing a football game to realise she was refusing the milk bottle while crying and thrashing on his lap
The baby's mother, Nurraishah Mahzan (now 31), had left their Telok Blangah Crescent flat at about 10.20am for a urine test after feeding and burping her daughter, who'd drank about half of the milk in her bottle at that point. Nurraishah then tasked Reyhana's father, Mohamed Shiddiq (now 27), to continue feeding the baby.
Left alone with Reyhana, Shiddiq decided to multitask. Sitting on a bed with his daughter on his lap, he continued playing a football game on his mobile phone with his right hand while feeding her with his left.
According to investigation officer Tony Won, Reyhana had started to push the milk away with her tongue. However, her father placed the teat in her mouth and continued playing without looking at his struggling daughter.
According to a report by The New Singapore, Won testified that Reyhana had protested by kicking her legs and moving her hands, but Shiddiq put the bottle in her mouth and did not look at her or know what she wanted when she started crying.
"(By his) own admission, he was so engrossed (with the game), he didn't pay any attention to his child," Won told the court in a coroner's inquiry on Tuesday, 12 July.
Two minutes later, Reyhana went still. Even then, Shiddiq did not realise that something was wrong until his father-in-law returned home and realised the baby was pale and motionless.
When questioned, Shiddiq could not tell Mahzan Ahmad, the baby's maternal grandfather, what had happened.
Reyhana was not breathing, but having detected a pulse, Mahzan started performing CPR on the baby, who vomited out some milk. Several people, including Nurraishah, a policeman, and a paramedic, also tried to resuscitate the baby, but it was too late.
About an hour later, Reyhana was pronounced dead at the Singapore General Hospital
"Although the cause of death cannot be ascertained... smothering or suffocation is unaccompanied by visible injuries or permanent mark, but choking on milk may also be a possible cause of death," Won said in the inquiry.
Later on, police investigators performed lie-detector tests on both the baby's parents and grandfather. Not only did Shiddiq fail the test, he admitted to dropping the baby on her head more than a month prior to the tragedy.
After several rounds of interviews, Shiddiq finally admitted that he had accidentally dropped Reyhana on her head on 26 August 2015. He was, once again, playing with his mobile phone when he realised that her pacifier had dropped on the floor. When he squatted to pick it up, Reyhana fell backwards and the back of her head - which was not supported - hit the ground.
Nurraishah later brought the baby - who was crying continuously - to the hospital, where she learnt that the baby was found to have a fractured skull. Shiddiq kept silent about how their daughter suffered that injury.
Reyhana was discharged on 9 September after her parents signed a safety undertaking with the Ministry of Social and Family Development. A child protection officer further suggested that Reyhana must be accompanied by at least two adults at all times.
In addition to fractures on her skull, an autopsy also found that three of her ribs were broken about one to two weeks before her death
While the cause of the rib injuries have not been made known, a pathologist said that the injuries would not have cause or contributed to her death.
Following the coroner's hearing on 12 July, Shiddiq took to Facebook to express his grief over losing his daughter
"You want to tell the whole world that I don't know how to take care (of children). But in this situation, I did not intentionally do that (to her).
"I loved her like how others loved her too. But I loved her more than the love given by others. In this world, who doesn't love his own child?
"I deliver cargo for a living. When I'm in the lorry, I see families with their babies walking together and I feel sad. I almost tear, nobody knows what my heart feels. I just have to endure. God, please give me strength," Shiddiq wrote in Malay.