Fewer Parents than Expected Put Their Babies to Sleep on Back Despite SIDS Risk

The United States witnessed some extremely positive effects of the campaign of Back to Sleep. These efforts raised awareness of the existence of the sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS. One way to avoid such a dreadful condition is to put babies to sleep on their backs. Unfortunately, there are still parents who aren’t taking the SIDS risk into consideration.

The Scientific Review Included 3,297 Mothers of Infants Aged 2 to 6 Months

Sudden unexpected infant death which is the result of the SIDS syndrome is one of the leading causes of newborn deaths across the United States. Eve R. Colson, MD, together with her colleagues, researched more this dreadful attribute of the modern society.

Efforts to curb the influence of the SIDS risk started back in 2005. This was when the AAP began informing citizens of this fatal condition. On top of that, authorities recommended parents to position their infants supine for safer conditions during the night when parents dispose of fewer monitoring possibilities.

However, despite the Back to Sleep campaign, not all parents are aware of these recommendations. To measure the extent to this situation, Eve Colson and her colleagues surveyed a number of 3,297 mothers in the United States. Their infants were aged 2 to 6 months. Researchers had to determine whether the sleep positions were the result of their mothers’ influence or not.

Physician Guidance and Higher Level of Education of Parents Can Curb the SIDS Risk among Newborns

The majority of questions in the survey regarded the sleeping positions for both mothers and infants. The findings pointed out that 73.3% of mothers are trying to leave their infants in bed in a supine position. However, only 43.7% of them are exclusively using this technique every single time. The rest of them are aware of these recommendations, yet they fail to put them in practice.

The study also suggested that parents have great confidence in their physicians. Therefore, they are willing to put in practice every piece of advice coming from them. On the other hand, the paper also uncovered a link between the low level of education of parents and the infants’ sleeping positions being prone or sides.
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