by Claudia Boyd-Barrett posted in Parenting

We?ve been told for 23 years to always put babies to sleep on their backs. Yet incredibly many moms still aren?t heeding that advice, new research suggests.
Putting your baby to sleep on her back is the number 1 way to help reduce her risk of dying unexpectedly and inexplicably in her sleep, a tragedy known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), as well as from suffocation and strangulation in bed. Health authorities have been urging parents to follow this basic rule since 1994, when the government launched the ?Back to Sleep? campaign.
Fast forward to today and the rate of SIDS has declined significantly, down to about 3,700 cases in 2015. But the pace of decline has leveled off. Could it be because parents aren?t consistently following the Back to Sleep principle" For the just-published study in the journal Pediatrics, researchers surveyed more than 3,000 moms with infants between 2 months and 6 months old. They asked the moms what position they put their babies to sleep in, and how frequently they put them in that position.
It?s disheartening to read that only 43 percent of the moms - less than half ? said they put their babies to sleep on their backs all the time. Just over three quarters of the moms said they put their babies to sleep on their backs ?usually,? but many moms also let their babies sleep on their tummies and sides.
 
Exactly why the Back to Sleep message isn?t getting through to everyone is unclear....