SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)
What is "SIDS"?
SIDS is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and these are any unexplained death of a child from newborn to one year of age. It's often commonly referred to as crib death because these children are sometimes found unexplicably in their crib after sleeping, dead without an explained cause. The incidence of SIDS really peaks between two and four months of age and then decreases after four months of age. And we don't really know what causes SIDS but the common thought is that there's something wrong with, in certain predisposed people, an immature brain stem and that when you're doing little things at night like stopping breathing for brief periods of time and these children you don't get the jump start with their brain stem. So I think of it as a two head hypothesis, you have to be pre-disposition and then, on top of it, you may be in a postion that may make it more likely that SIDS occurs.
How do I reduce the risk of SIDS?
Well, the biggest thing you can do to reduce the risk of SIDS happened in the late '90s with the "back to sleep" campaign, and this is when we started putting children to sleep on their backs only. Again, the instances of SIDS probably decreased by greater than 50 percent since the "back to sleep" campaign so back to sleep sleeping is the best way. And they used to say side sleeping was okay as well, but we've really gotten away from that because in some children, on their side, by accident rolled on to their stomachs so we just want to avoid any type of stomach sleeping. Now, parents get concerned; "Well, on their back, what if they spit up, or they vomit, won't they choke, and then that would cause more problems?" and actually when they looked at this, that's not the case. If your child spits up or vomits they're going to turn their head. There were no increased incidents of risk based on that. So back to sleep, and sleeping on the back is the most important thing. Other things you can do to prevent SIDS: sleeping on a firm mattress so you don't really want a cushy, pillowy mattress. You want to not overbundle so you really shouldn't have any loose blankets or pillows in the crib 'til after one year of age. The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends being careful about co-sleeping because parents may roll over on the child. Now recent studies have actually shown a benefit with pacifier use at nap and bedtime because this probably keeps the child in a more aroused state or a more easily aroused state. One additional thing that will reduce the risk of SIDS is avoiding smoking in the home, and even second-hand smoke. And there has been no correlation between vaccines and an increased risk of SIDS.
At what age is my baby no longer at risk for SIDS?
After a year we really don't worry about SIDS anymore, but really the incidences of SIDS drops off greatly after four months of age and over 90% of the cases of SIDS occur in under six months of age.
