When Tasia Linson went to wake up her son, she was met with every parents worst nightmare: four-month-old Kashton was lying blue and limp in his crib.
Panicked, Tasia dialed 911. Within 10 minutes, paramedics arrived at her house and tried to resuscitate the infant, but they were unsuccessful and Kashton was declared dead shortly after arriving to the hospital in November 2024.
After seeing Kashton lying in the hospital crib, Tasia said she entered a state of shock: ‘I touched him a little bit, but I couldn’t process it and I couldn’t believe I was looking at my baby lying there dead.
‘So I didn’t pick him up. I didn’t kiss him. I didn’t do anything. I was so over it that I just left.’
Doctors told the parents they didn’t find anything ‘abnormal’ with Kashton and ruled his cause of death as SUID – sudden unexpected infant death – from an unsafe sleep environment, possibly due to suffocation when he face was nestled in a blanket.
SUID is an umbrella term for the sudden and unexpected death of an infant younger than 12 months old. SUID includes all unexpected deaths – those with and without a clear cause.
Since Kashton’s death, Tasia and her fiancé Demetrian, from Georgia, have wrestled with feelings of guilt, confusion, and being angry with themselves.
But as she works through her grief and heals more everyday from her family’s sudden loss, Tasia wants other parents to know how to prevent them from suffering a similar devastating heartbreak.
Kashton is pictured as a newborn in July 2024. He passed away at four months old of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID)
Tasia is pictured holding baby Kashton beside two of her children, with her fiancé Demetrian
Tasia told DailyMail.com: ‘His death certificate says unsafe sleep environment, which I don’t disagree with, because after reading that, [I learned babies are] supposed to lay flat on their back.
‘[Kashton] was on his stomach… and I added blankets in there thinking that it was to make him comfortable, but I didn’t know that they’re not supposed to really lay on that type of stuff.’
Her other children had slept in cribs but without blankets lining the sides.
Kaston was born in July 2024 about three weeks early, but was healthy and happy. Tasia called him ‘an angel baby.’
She told this website: ‘He had his favorite little church song. He woke up just wanting to play and laugh.’
Kashton was her fifth child and the first she had with her fiancé.
The morning he died seemed no different from any other. He woke up as happy and eager to play as ever, smiling and laughing while Tasia got her other kids ready for school.
A few hours later, Tasia tried to nurse him, but he wasn’t interested. Brushing off his poor appetite, she decided to put Kashton down for a nap.
Tasia called Kashton ‘an angel baby’ who always wanted to laugh and play, had his favorite church songs, and loved his big brother and sister
The above shows the top ten leading causes of infant deaths and whether they have risen or fallen in 2022 (light blue) compared to 2021 (dark blue)
She was on the phone with her mother when she went back into Kashton’s room to wake him.
She said: ‘Normally when I come to his bed, he’ll squint or make a little movement. He didn’t do anything.’
She went to his crib and noticed a bluish tint to his skin. When she lifted him, his arms flopped down behind him, and his legs weren’t moving.
Her fiancé rushed into the nursery and performed CPR while Tasia called 911.
Milk came out of Kashton’s nose and mouth and Tasia’s fiancé insists Kashton ‘gasped for air’, though she didn’t see it.
Paramedics were at their home within 10 minutes of receiving Tasia’s call, and she said the next hour was a blur.
Tasia rode in the ambulance beside her son, who lay unresponsive on a gurney.
She said: ‘I talked to him there, like, “Kashton, it’s gonna be okay. Mommy loves you.” I just kept telling him it’s gonna be okay, but he never cried.’
Kashton was pronounced dead soon after arriving at the hospital and as doctors found nothing to be wrong with the infant, they ruled his death as SUID, contributed to by an unsafe sleeping environment.
Tasia acknowledged that Kashton’s crib was not as safe as it should have been. His mattress was not firm enough and he may have stopped breathing from laying his face in the blankets that lined the inside of the crib.
When asked whether she knew all of this before Kashton was born, she said no. But wants other parents to know now.
Since Kashton’s death, Tasia has found herself dwelling on what she believes contributed to Kashton’s sudden death and what she may have been able to do to prevent it
‘I did kind of blame myself for a long time,’ Tasia said.
Tasia still finds herself dwelling on what else she believes could have contributed to Kashton’s sudden death and what she may have been able to do to prevent it.
She said: ‘I know that my appetite [while pregnant] wasn’t the best. So I didn’t know if I wasn’t eating right. And he had got his shots maybe, like, a couple of weeks before that, and he ended up getting a little sick.
‘My older kids were always coming home sick, so they came home and I would try to quarantine us from them to where they wouldn’t get him sick. But I ended up getting sick, and I think I got him sick.’
Included in SUID is the more well-known sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), which is the sudden death of an infant under one that is left unexplained even after an autopsy and thorough investigation.
SIDS accounts for one half of SUIDs.
The exact cause of SIDS and SUID are unclear, though there are risk factors, including a mother smoking, drinking or using drugs during pregnancy, a premature birth, teen pregnancy, low birth weight, overheating, an unsafe sleeping environment and being assigned male at birth.
Multiple studies have confirmed vaccines do not cause and are not linked to SUID or SIDS.
According to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Vaccine Education Center: ‘Since immunizations are given to about 90 percent of children less than 1 year of age, and about 1,600 cases of SIDS occur every year, it would be expected, statistically, that every year about 50 cases of SIDS will occur within 24 hours of receipt of a vaccine.
‘However, because the incidence of SIDS is the same in children who do or do not receive vaccines, we know that SIDS is not caused by vaccines.’
Demetrian is pictured feeding Kashton. Tasia said her fiancé took Kashton’s death especially hard because the baby was Demetrian’s first
To reduce the risk of SIDS and SUID parents should not share a bed with the baby, remove loose bedding from a baby’s sleep environment, place the baby on their back, keep the sleeping environment cool and use a baby-safe crib.
New research published in JAMA Pediatrics last month shows the rate of SUID in the US rose by nearly 12 percent from 2020 to 2022.
The study found in 2022 that SUID increased from 90 deaths in 100,000 babies to nearly 101 in 100,000. Researchers behind the study ‘found that infant mortality from SUID has increased significantly.’
The new study does not provide evidence for what could be causing sudden or unexplained deaths in babies, but they have several hypotheses, including respiratory illnesses, maternal opioid use, and the role of social media in promoting unsafe sleep practices.
The study also found elevated rates of SUID in minority groups, which researchers say could be a result of unsafe sleeping positions, prematurity, tobacco exposure or infant feeding practices.
Though they say further research is needed.
Following Kashton’s death, Tasia told this website the hospital staff and police were ‘insensitive’ and her family cut her off.
She said: ‘The detective was like, “Well we can do this here or we can do this at the precinct” while I was in the room with [Kashton], while he was laid down and had been pronounced dead.
‘So I’m like, I really don’t want to do it at all, because I’m not leaving with my baby. What more do you want to know?’
From 1999 to 2022, infant mortality dropped by 24.2 percent and deaths from many causes fell, with the exception of SUID which rose from 89.9 to 100.5 per 100,000 between 2020 and 2022
Shortly after his death, an autopsy confirmed it was a SUID, resulting from an unsafe sleep environment. The doctors and police confirmed Tasia and Demetrian were not at fault.
The findings, however, did not convince Tasia’s family the couple was innocent, and they cut her off soon after hearing the details of Kashton’s death.
Tasia said: ‘I have eight siblings, and all of them checked on me maybe, the first day, and that was it. They just called to get the story, and that was it.
‘Our whole family stopped talking to us. We had been cleared, but we still have family members that are going around spreading rumors that they think we did something.’
In place of lost family support, Tasia and her Demetrian grew to rely more on each other, and their bond strengthened.
She said some days are harder than others: ‘The other day, I was trying to sing this song that I would sing to him, and I was just bawling. It’s a process.’
They now have an altar dedicated to Kashton in their home and wear lockets filled with his ashes around their necks.
Tasia is making a concerted effort to maintain a positive outlook while accepting that the depression will sneak in sometimes.
She said: ‘I don’t follow a specific religion, but I study many traditions, and I learned that some believe you should send a prayer every seventh day for 45 days to help the soul evolve to the next level.
‘I’ve come to understand that death isn’t really meant to be a sad thing. They say you’re supposed to mourn for birth and, in a way, celebrate death.’
