The AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) released a press release today, with their guidelines for infant sleep safety and to avoid crib death. As you all know at our San Diego Chiropractic office, we see tons of kids.
I can only imagine, what it would be like to come in and find your child not breathing after a night sleeping, jut terrifying to think of.
A double edged statement in the press release is:
Since the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended all babies should be placed on their backs to sleep in 1992, deaths from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome have declined dramatically. But sleep- related deaths from other causes, including suffocation, entrapment and asphyxia, have increased.
The three main points are:
1. Kids who breastfeed are at a lower risk of SIDS.
My comment, is that because there is something magic in the breast milk, or simply that parents who put a kid to bed with a bottle, risk that kid choking, or maybe just parents who breast feed are more likely to be hyper alert to everything? Not sure it is cause and effect or not, but obviously correlated.
2. Evidence suggests that immunization reduces the risk of SIDS by 50
percent. This one raises my eyebrow a bit. After decades of watching the medical industry, the drug companies, and the government interact, I wonder what the real story is behind it. Again, it could easily be a correlation that was drawn in some odd way, comparing apples to oranges, because the vast majority of American babies still get immunized.
3. This is the one that really caught my attention. Bumper pads should not be used in cribs. There is no evidence that bumper pads prevent injuries, and there is a potential risk of suffocation, strangulation or entrapment.
These are those little roll up pads that go around the edge of a crib. Who would have thought that those could be dangerous enough to actually show up statistically on studies.
I hope that helped you as much as me. Simple, easy fix to help your kid be a bit safer!
I read somewhere that keeping the baby’s feet touching the edge or foot of the crib also helps. The explanation was that it reduces the baby’s movements and thus he doesn’t get too warm, which they said was a cause of SIDS.