Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Baby Dies Under Smoldering Electric Blanket as She Sleeps

A 5-month-old baby died Friday morning after an electric blanket she was sleeping under began to smolder, sheriff’s officials said. The cause of death has not been determined, and the incident is under investigation by the Sheriff’s Department.

Janassia Nash had been sleeping in a bedroom next to her parents’ room in their Lancaster home on Mulberry Avenue, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Richard Dinsmoor. Her parents had placed her in bed with the blanket at about 2 a.m. Friday, he said.

“At 7:05 a.m., her father woke up, smelled smoke and went into the other room,” Dinsmoor said. “It was at that time he saw the smoldering blanket. He immediately called 911.”

Paramedics pronounced the baby dead at the scene.

Product-safety and medical personnel advise against using electric blankets with small children.

“If something happens with the heat control, they can’t get to it,” said Marcia Kerr, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Newer blankets usually carry warnings against using them with people who are elderly, incapacitated or otherwise unable to quickly react if a problem occurs, Kerr said, although such accidents are rare.

Special caution should be taken with young children because they are more vulnerable to high temperatures than adults are, said Dr. Alan Nager, an emergency room physician for Childrens Hospital, Los Angeles.

“Young kids are insensitive to heat,” said Nager. “They don’t have the developed physiological mechanism to shed that heat.”

Nager said it is especially risky to use an electric blanket on a child overnight, because the device’s heat is not being monitored.

“It’s plain and simple wrong to use them on children in general,” Nager said.