Babies sleeping position

Research shows that putting your baby to sleep on their back reduces the risk of SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome. This article discusses a study showing that only 77% of moms have their baby sleep on their back. This is despite a 23 year ongoing campaign to educate parents about safe sleeping positions.

American Academy of Pediatrics Updates

Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics released updated guidelines on two important issues related sleep. The first update concerned sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Here is a link to the guidelines.

The second update concerned media use in children and adolescents. The recommendations discuss sleep and other aspects of how media affects children. For younger children, here is the link. For older children and adolescents, here is the link.

Pictures of infants' sleeping positions in media

Here is an interesting abstract presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in San Diego. I didn't attend this meeting, but saw a write-up about this abstract here. The abstract is about a study designed to evaluate images in popular stock photograph websites and pictures of infants in magazines published for women of childbearing age. The study authors were attempting to determine if the pictures were in compliance with the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for safe infant sleep practices - meaning having your infant sleep on its back to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

The results showed that just over half (50.3%) of the stock photos from websites showed the baby sleeping on its back. And only 15.7% of all infant sleep environments were compliant with American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations - meaning that the infant was not bed-sharing and the crib did not have soft objects like pillows, blankets, or bumper pads. With regard to the magazine pictures, there were 4 out of 12 pictures showing an infant sleeping on its stomach, which may raise the risk of SIDS. And only 7 of 24 magazine pictures properly demonstrated a safe infant sleep environment.

The study authors are concerned that stock photo websites and magazine pictures of infants sleeping in positions and environments not recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics could confuse some women, causing them to think it's ok to let their infant sleep on its stomach, for example.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden, unexplainable death of a baby less than a year old. The baby usually dies in its sleep. Rates of SIDS have decreased, perhaps due to public health campaigns that emphasize having infants sleep on their back only. But researchers still don't know exactly why SIDS occurs. This article discusses new research showing that the brains of babies who have died of SIDS have a similar histological pattern to those of children who died of accidental asphyxiation. The research showed that the histological pattern of the SIDS babies was different than that of babies who died from head trauma or infection.