Saturday 19 December 2009

Study links factors to choice of infant sleep position

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have identified three principal factors linked to whether caregivers place infants to sleep on their backs. Those three factors are: whether they received a physician's recommendation to place infants only on their backs for sleep, fear that the infant might choke while sleeping on the back, and concerns for an infant's comfort while sleeping on the back.

A large body of research has shown that placing infants on their backs to sleep reduces the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), the leading cause of death during the first year of life in the United States.

"Placing infants on their backs for sleep remains the single most effective means we know to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome," said Marian Willinger, Ph.D., Special Assistant for SIDS research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which funded the analysis. "For the vast majority of infants, concerns about choking while back sleeping are unfounded."

Dr. Willinger noted that certain conditions might prompt a physician to consider recommending against back placement. However, such recommendations are arrived at only after careful deliberation and after taking into account all the potential risks and benefits for the infant involved.

The survey also found that after increasing steadily, the proportion of infants placed to sleep on their backs leveled off in the years since 2001.

The study appears in the December issue of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Its lead author is Eve R. Colson, M.D., of Yale University School of Medicine.

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