14 DAY TRIAL // 'Back to Sleep' was an initiative devised by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) some years ago, to make parents aware of the fact that they needed to put their babies to sleep on their backs. This was extremely important, NIH officials said at the time, because it was the only known way to reduce the incidence of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The condition caused small children to inexplicably perish, and some studies were finally able to connect the condition to the fact that some parents laid their children to sleep on their bellies. Now, NIH officials say that fewer people follow the guidelines, although the risks are the same.
A new study, commissioned by the NIH, and carried out by experts at the Yale School of Medicine, has revealed that there are only three factors that determine parents to place their children to sleep on their backs, or refuse to do so. The most important factor is getting a recommendation from a doctor. A factor that generally prevents the parents from complying with the NIH directives is, ironically, the fear that their child will choke if laid to rest on their back. Thirdly, some parents are also worried that their children may be getting a poor night's sleep if they are laid to rest in that position.
Most of the parents who do not comply with the NIH directives seem to forget that SIDS still remains the number-one cause of death for children under the age of one in the United States today. “Placing infants on their backs for sleep remains the single most effective means we know to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. For the vast majority of infants, concerns about choking while back sleeping are unfounded,” Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Special Assistant for SIDS research Marian Willinger, PhD, says.
Further details of the Yale study appear in the December issue of the respected scientific journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, the group says. “Some health professionals may not be aware of the change. We're continuing our efforts to make sure that they know – and know to tell their patients – that infants sleep safest on their backs,” Willinger adds, quoted by PhysOrg.
“We know that it is really important for health care providers to tell families that they should place their infants on the back to sleep. We can't equivocate, or the message gets lost. And we need to serve as role models, placing infants to sleep on their backs, beginning the minute infants are born in our hospital nurseries and pediatric units,” the lead author of the new paper, Yale University School of Medicine expert Eve R. Colson, MD, concludes.