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 Researchers analyzed nighttime video recordings taken in family
homes when babies were 1 month, 3 months and 6 months old.
On camera, the vast majority of infants were sleeping in an unsafe
position or surrounded by items that increase the risk of SIDS like
pillows, loose bedding, stuffed animals and crib bumpers, the study
found.
“SIDS is not that rare; about 3,500 babies die of sudden unexplained
infant deaths each year in the US,” said senior study author Dr. Ian
Paul of Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
“Given that these are preventable deaths, this severe risk is
notable,” Paul added by email.
Nationwide, SIDS kills about four babies out of every 10,000 live
births, down from about 130 in 10,000 in 1990, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Despite the dramatic decline in death from SIDS since 1992, when the
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) announced that babies should be
placed on their backs to sleep, SIDS remains a leading cause of
infant mortality.
To prevent SIDS, the AAP also encourages breastfeeding, pacifier use
and firm crib mattresses while advising against blankets, pillows
and bed-sharing.
Among the 160 one-month-olds recorded for the current study, 21
percent were put to sleep on unsafe surfaces, 14 percent weren’t on
their backs and 91 percent had loose items like stuffed animals and
pillows, researchers report in Pediatrics.
Of the 151 babies recorded at three months of age, 10 percent were
put to sleep on unsafe surfaces, 18 percent weren’t on their backs
and 87 percent had unsafe items like crib bumpers or blankets.
By age 6 months, 12 percent of the 147 infants still in the study
were put down on unsafe surfaces, 33 percent weren’t on their backs
and 93 percent had unsafe items with them in bed.
When parents moved babies during the night, they were even less
likely to be on their back in the next place they slept, the study
also found.
Limitations of the study include its largely white group of
participants with more education and income than typical U.S.
parents. That may have underestimated how often babies sleep in
unsafe ways, the authors note.
The results are surprising because most of the parents were college
graduates, said Michael Gradisar, a researcher at Flinders
University in Adelaide, Australia, who wasn’t involved in the study.
These parents should be well aware of public health campaigns
promoting safe infant sleep.
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“It may be that they hear conflicting advice from other sources
(e.g., friends and family), but we really don't know unless further
research asks why parents choose unsafe sleep practices for their
child,” Gradisar said by email.
Some parents may also introduce unsafe items like blankets because
they think these things comfort infants and help crying babies get
to sleep, said Helen Ball, director of the Parent-Infant Sleep Lab
at Durham University in the U.K.
“If the baby wakes up in the night – which of course most do – and
can't be settled back to sleep in the same position or location,
then parents tend to do what works to get them back to sleep
especially if a crying baby risks waking everyone else in the
household,” Ball, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
In addition to SIDS, though, parents also need to be aware that
babies may suffocate or be strangled to death when they don’t sleep
on their backs in a safe environment, noted Dr. Michael Goodstein, a
neonatologist at York Hospital WellSpan Health in York,
Pennsylvania, who wasn’t involved in the study.
Because the absolute risk of SIDS is low, parents may have a false
sense of security, Goodstein said by email.
“At the end of the day, it isn’t a problem unless it happens to you
– and then it’s too late and there is no turning back,” Goodstein
said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2bkCmsM Pediatrics, online August 15, 2016.
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