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 In 2015, about 92 in every 100,000 babies up to age 12 months died
of sleep-related causes like sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) or
accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed or other unknown
causes, researchers report in Pediatrics. That’s down from about 155
deaths for every 100,000 babies in 1990.
But most of this progress occurred before 2000. Deaths rates plunged
by 45 percent from 1990 to 1998 and then dipped by just 7 percent
from 1999 to 2015.
“We still have 3,500 babies dying from sleep-related deaths every
year in the U.S., and our rates are higher than most other
industrialized countries. We lose one baby every two to three hours
every day of the year,” said Dr. Michael Goodstein of WellSpan
Health in Pennsylvania who wasn’t involved in the study.
“It is national tragedy,” Goodstein said by email.
SIDS has become much less common in recent decades as doctors have
urged parents to put infants to sleep on their backs without
blankets or other soft bedding and toys that could pose a
suffocation risk. But it still remains a leading cause of infant
mortality, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
These deaths can be caused by a variety of factors including brain
abnormalities or respiratory problems in babies as well as sleeping
face down on fluffy surfaces or surfaces that pose a risk of
suffocation.
To reduce the risk, the AAP recommends that babies sleep in the same
room as their parents – but not the same bed – for at least six
months and ideally up to one year.
Breastfeeding can also help prevent SIDS, but mothers shouldn’t
sleep with babies in their beds to make nursing more convenient in
the middle of the night, according to the AAP guidelines.
From 1999 through 2015, infant death rates from accidental
suffocation and strangulation in bed surged 184 percent, the study
found. This happened as declines in the use of soft bedding slowed,
gains in getting babies to sleep on their back halted, and sharing
beds with parents increased.
Since 1999, progress has also varied by state.
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In the District of Columbia, for example, the number of deaths for
every 100,000 babies dropped by 82 cases since 1999, to 102 per
100,000 by the end of the study.
At the other extreme, in Alaska, the number of deaths climbed by 55
cases per 100,000 during this time to 202 fatalities for every
100,000 babies.
Many factors may have contributed to differences among the states,
including varying levels of regulation and education about safe
infant sleep practices, said lead study author Alexa Erck Lambert, a
researcher for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
in Atlanta.
“The role of these sudden unexpected infant death risk reduction
programs, demographic changes, tobacco use, and emerging issues such
as increasing opioid use, deserve further investigation,” Lambert
said by email.
One limitation of the study is that it relied on death certificate
records, which may not always accurately reflect the reasons babies
died, the authors note.
Still, the results offer fresh evidence that the U.S. has a long way
to go in reducing these deaths, said Anna Pease, a researcher at the
University of Bristol in the UK who wasn’t involved in the study.
One fix might be to adopt an approach similar to the UK, which
focuses on safe practices for bed sharing instead of on discouraging
the practice outright, Pease said by email.
“They must never sleep on a sofa or in a chair with another sleeping
person, and avoid bed sharing if there is any smoking, drinking or
drugs involved, or if the baby was preterm or low birth weight,”
Pease advised. “Parents can further reduce the risks by being
smoke-free during and after pregnancy, breastfeeding if they can,
and making sure the baby does not get too hot or too cold.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2suicJQ Pediatrics, online February 12, 2018.
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