SIDS and bedsharing are intimately linked: Study
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| Posted
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Sat, 09 Jul 2005 01:32:00 GMT |
| Author
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Emma Price |
| Category
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Health |
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Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has once again come under the scanner after a new study found that infants who share their bed with their parents are at an increased risk of succumbing to SIDS. This risk was prevalent even if both the parents were non-smokers.
An earlier study had pointed to smoking among parents as a cause of sudden deaths in infants aged one month to one year. Researchers from the University of Glasgow and Ecob Consulting conducted this study between 1996 and 2000 and analyzed data related to 123 victims of SIDS. They arrived at their conclusions after closely questioning the parents of these victims. David Tappin, MD, MPH led the team of the researchers.
Some of the important findings of the study are as follows:
* It was found that almost 90 percent of the babies died at night.
* 52 percent of the victims had shared their parents' bed on the day/night that they died.
* However, only 11 percent of infants regularly slept in their parents' bed.
* 72 percent of the victims who had shared their parents' bed, and 57 percent of those who had shared a couch were less than 11 weeks old.
The researchers say that a relationship exists between SIDS, bedsharing and couchsharing. They add that at the age of 11 weeks infants are at high risk for SIDS. This is regardless of exposure to smoke and other contributory factors like the amount of time that they spent in their parents' bed. So according to their findings, 11 weeks is some kind of a watershed as far as SIDS is concerned. Commenting on these findings, Hazel Brooke, executive director of the Scottish Cot Death Trust, which funded the study, said, "The message is quite clear - the safest place for a baby to sleep is in his or her own cot in the same room as the parents for the first six months."
The detailed article can be found in the July issue of The Journal of Pediatrics.
SIDS is defined as the sudden death of an infant under the age of one year that remains mysterious despite performing a complete autopsy and review of the clinical history of the victim. Unfortunately, SIDS is the most common cause of death in these infants. It also causes untold trauma to parents who end up blaming themselves or each other for the baby's death. Parents usually discover that babies have died in their sleep. So far, the exact cause of SIDS has not been clearly identified. However, certain precautions have been recommended among which the following are the most important:
* Researchers say that smoking during pregnancy significantly increases the risk. Hence, smoking should be avoided.
* The baby's head should always be kept uncovered.
* For the first six months it is advised that the baby should sleep in a cot in the parents' room.
* At the first signs of distress in your baby, take him/her to your doctor.
Copyright,
respective author or news agency
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SIDS
By:
hannah ,
Thu, 14 Jul 2005 17:54:14 GMT
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I don't know too much about SIDS, but I am also with technofunk with regards to this article. However I have slept with my baby from day 1 and I feel more safe with him right next to me than anywhere else (my baby's 19 months now).
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SIDS
By:
Donna ,
Mon, 11 Jul 2005 05:12:06 GMT
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Its soooo obviously why co-sleeping "between" two parents puts infants at greater risk. I co-slept with babies but without the husband. When I did have him sleep with me and the baby I had to throw him out after a little while 8-).. He really heated up the bed and I instinctly felt it was dangerous. With just me and bub I could push the infant away from me a foot or two, use those co-sleeping things and felt it was safe. When you have two adults moving around and a poor little thing sandwiched between them, well I just hope they add that to a future study, put in a temp. guage between two sleeping adults on a fake infant doll and it would clearly show that the temps arnt safe especially if the infant has a slight temp (after vaccinations?).
budnspud
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SIDS
By:
budnspud ,
Mon, 11 Jul 2005 00:25:36 GMT
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Support your scientific community. They are good people just like all of us with families of their own, trying their best to find out the causes. All science takes time. I imagine that soon their will be studies seeing vaccinated vs non-vaccinated. If 52% did die while sharing the bed then this statistic will need to be explored. Vaccinations do work BTW, european counties who have studied them have all come to the same conclusions. European counties not connected to drug companies. In muslim countries right now polio is back because their was a rumor going around that the vaccination was responsible for infertility in their children. In Indonesia there is currently 121 identified cases (which means their could be double that infected without symptoms).
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SIDS
By:
RC ,
Sun, 10 Jul 2005 15:10:23 GMT
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Actually, there is quite a large number of infants who have not received immunizations, mine being one of them. Furthermore, the only data ever collected re:SIDS and immunizations suggests that there is a disproportionately large number of infants who die of SIDS within 3 weeks of receiving the pertussis vaccination.
At any rate, although infants dying silently in their sleep is not a new occurrence, it is NOT caused by sleeping in a safe environment with sober parents! Including couch sleeping in the co-sleeping group right along with safe co-sleeping practices will naturally skew the numbers! Everyone knows sleeping on a couch with an infant is not safe, as the infant can be smothered between the adult and the cushions. When an infant is sleeping next to its sober mother on firm bedding with no heavy covers, laboratory studies have shown the infant is actually much *less* likely to suffer frequent and/or prolonged apneic episodes than when the infant is sleeping alone in a crib. Frequent and/or prolonged episodes of apnea are strongly associated with SIDS. Therefore, reducing them by putting an infant to sleep with its mother in a safe co-sleeping environment should most likely *reduce* SIDS deaths, according to researchers whose "studies" were not funded by the crib manufacturing industry, as this one was. (That fact is clearly stated in other articles discussing this "study", although it isn't mentioned in this article, for some reason.)
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SIDS
By:
John ,
Sun, 10 Jul 2005 13:25:11 GMT
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Who are these people who "disagree" on the scientific medical findings? Who cares if you disagree with them? My daughter died on her fifteenth night at midnight and I brought her back. I am so sorry for Eric. My best friend lost twins less than six months before they figured out how to do a routine procedure that saves kids from that kind of death. I pray that they find an answer quickly so that children don't have to die from SIDS anymore.
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SIDS
By:
FRAP ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 14:04:21 GMT
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I can easily see how sleeping with the parents could cause an emotional reaction in a baby, but I am really miffed as to how there is any reaction which causes babies to die. What's next? Stuffed animals cause athsma among toddlers?
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Look at what the stats say
By:
J ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 09:36:16 GMT
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I agree with technofunk, what the figures show is that at least 41% of these babies did not die simply "out of the blue" -- they were already sufficiently distressed that the parents had unusually taken the baby in to sleep with them.
I remember some old figures showing that many SIDS babies had actually been hospitaized in the previous two weeks with respiratory problems.
So the message seems to be to take extra care of your unhappy and possibly sick baby. The Scottish
Cot Death Trust is saying much the same with the instruction to keep your baby in the same room -- that would not make any difference to sudden unpredictable silent death.
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Childhood mortality
By:
B. Hersh ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 07:44:52 GMT
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I suspect that SIDS wouldn't occasion much conversation or study in societies where vaccination is uncommon, as the childhood mortality there from communicable diseases would approach 30-50% instead of the .5% prevalent in vaccinated societies. An interesting study would be a 20-30 year one which followed childhood mortality in a sizable cult of vaccination opponents who settled in a highly populated area, in India or Africa say, where vaccination was sporadic or rare. My guess is that they and their surviving children would return to their vaccination-rich homeland before the study got very far along. Incidentally, childhood death by drowning and auto accident far, far exceeds the risk of SIDS, whether or not one bunks alone in infancy. And I notice that there's no discussion in this latest study of the genetic correlation in SIDS, which I have read elsewhere is considerable.
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Fat Parents and Sids
By:
Fat Albert ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 07:20:46 GMT
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When fat parents sleep with the kids, they roll over on the kids and kill them, mystery solved.
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SIDS / bedsharing relastionship
By:
Hisham El Baramawi ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 06:39:09 GMT
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I don't think there's a link between bedsharing and baby's sudden death , such statistics are not strong enough to prove this relationship.
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SID and bedsharing
By:
ao ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 06:25:25 GMT
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Linking SID and bedsharing may be a uniquely Western phenomenon. Most African and third-world country babies sleep in the same beds as their parents and are not known to be disproportionately victims of SID. I do NOT believe this study was subject to rigorous and unbiased scientific analysis. The real cause of SID may be lurking somewhere else.
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And Hot Chocolate lowers the crime rate
By:
technofunk ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 06:08:24 GMT
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I don't see anything that separates children who were behaving strangely before bedtime, causing their parents to bring them to bed THAT NIGHT to keep an eye on them from children who regularly co-bed.
This is yet another study that had an answer ahead of time that needed to be "proven".
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SIDS
By:
Eric ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 06:03:46 GMT
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My son died from SIDS in 1988.
I have a different opinion than the others here. The documentation provided to my wife and myself after my sons death suggested that SIDS has been around for a long time. Many doctors feel that the parable in the Bible where King Solomon was to decide which of the 2 mothers who were fighting over the 1 remaining child was a SIDS case.
I hope they find a cure as it's a terrible thing to have to live through. I hope Nathan Doak never has to live through the experience. Nor do I wish he has to "live with death of any of his children to let others live." What an ignorant and stupid comment.
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SIDS/shots
By:
Sunny ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 04:13:12 GMT
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I don't think there are enough infants without shots (even counting those that are only delayed a few months) to make a reliable study. It would be similar to studying the rate of SIDS among young infants who live in purple houses. The group would be so small that the findings wouldn't mean anything UNLESS there was a markedly HIGHER rate of SIDS in the smaller group. Now, if there were a link between the time shots were given and the age of death, that would be easier to prove or disprove because you could just study the victims, but I would guess that the people who spent years researching SIDS (God bless them, for they did find a way to reduce the number of deaths by sleep position) probably looked at that.
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SIDS
By:
Nathan Doak ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 03:41:22 GMT
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Well I am not that familial with SIDS but has it just resently arisen since we have started innoculating babys? If it has then it is something to look into. But the real question is do more baby die from the DPT dieases and mumps then from SIDS. If the answer is yes then we have to live with the deaths in order to pervent more deaths.
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SIDS and Miscarriages
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No Name ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 03:35:42 GMT
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This is more of a question than a comment. I was wondering if there is any link between the unknown causes of SIDS and miscarriages that are unsolved. Does anyone have information on this?
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SIDS
By:
AnnMarie Gazsi ,
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 02:58:38 GMT
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To Whom It May Concern:
My personal opinion based on reading the past 3-4 years is that SIDS happens mostly to babies who have received their "baby innoculations". Why not a study of SIDS among babies who don't have shots compared to those who do? Now wouldn't that make a big headline? I'll bet the pharmaceutical companies would challenge that idea. Do more babies with baby shots die from SIDS as compared to babies who don't get their baby shots who die from the diseases the shots are supposed to prevent. Diptheria, Whooping Cough(Petussis), Tetanus, and now Mumps??? I'm sure there are people who would love to be part of the study?
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