Photo: @cindyconfettisparkle via Instagram
For most parents, SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, is a big concern. SIDS occurs when a healthy baby under age one dies suddenly and unexpectedly while sleeping. This is the reason how (and where) you put your baby down to sleep matters?a lot.
And yet research suggests many parents aren?t following the sleep guidelines that lower the risk of SIDS. In a Penn State University study published in Pediatrics in August, researchers videotaped 160 parents and babies. The results: Up to 91 percent of one-month-olds were allowed to sleep with bumpers, stuffies or loose blankets or pillows, and 14 percent were put to bed on their sides or tummies, despite current back-sleeping recommendations. Not every SIDS death can be attributed to the wrong sleep position or loose blankets in the crib; sometimes they?re a mystery. Researchers are exploring a number of possibilities. For example, according to a 2014 study by the US National Institutes of Health, in more than 40 percent of studied cases, an abnormality was found in the hippocampus area of the brain, which influences breathing, heart rate and body temperature through its connection to the brain stem. Researchers think this abnormality might weaken the brain?s control of breathing and heart rate patterns during sleep.
Meanwhile, doctors at Seattle Children?s Hospital are looking at a link between SIDS and inner ear damage at birth, which may predispose certain babies to SIDS. And a...