Baby girl from Seaford died after pram tipped backwards

Little Lexie Russell slipped down and suffocated in the pushchair which was in the bedroom of her parents’ home in St Crispian’s Seaford.

An inquest at Eastbourne Town Hall heard on Thursday (November 26) that the baby girl was found unresponsive by her mother Leanne Chapman.

Despite the efforts of family members and several ambulance paramedics to revive Lexie, who was rushed to hospital in Brighton and later the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London, she died on December 22 last year.

Both Miss Chapman, Lexie’s father Steven Russell and her grandmother Angela Chapman all broke down as they relived the events at the inquest, presided over by East Sussex coroner James Healy-Pratt.

Lexie’s parents said it was usual for their daughter to be put to sleep in the Silver Cross pushchair as she did not like sleeping in a Moses’ basket or cot and the reclined position of the pushchair was the only place where she would settle.

A post mortem report showed Lexie’s death was due to positional asphyxiation, where she had slipped down the buggy, cardiac arrest and brain damage.

She was placed on a ventilator in the hospital before she died.

The inquest heard the manual for the pushchair did warn that babies should not be left sleeping unattended in it at night and that on the evening of the accident the pram did not have its brakes applied.

Police had been called to the property the night Lexie was found “unresponsive with purple lips” and also to the hospital but found that Lexie’s death was an accident.

Mr Healy-Pratt said Lexie’s parents had been through “an awful tragedy” and recorded a verdict the baby girl had died an accidental death.