Infant death report sparks anxiety
SIDS bereavement co-ordinator Ger O’Brien said they had received numerous calls from anxious parents following the publication of the report yesterday.
She said that while it was a risk factor, parents should remember that not all sudden infant deaths were due to sharing a bed with a baby and that even following the SIDS guidelines could not guarantee absolute safety of their child.
“Babies die that haven’t slept with their parents. It certainly adds to the anger of parents in their grief when they do follow the guidelines and SID occurs.”
The report also found that co-sleeping with mothers who smoked during pregnancy was another significant risk factor for infants under 20 weeks.
The study, led by Dr Cliona McGarvey of the National Sudden Infant Death Register and published in the British Medical Association’s journal, Archives of Disease in Childhood, highlights a range of factors that combine to increase the risk of sudden infant death syndrome 16-fold.
The absence of routine soother use prior to the infant’s death was also a significant risk factor, according to the study.
Forty seven per cent of SIDS babies did not have their soother on the night they died.
They were six times more at risk of SIDS without their soother than regular users who did have it.
Particular dangers included co-sleeping with parents, maternal smoking and infants sleeping in the prone (lying face down) position.
SIDS remains the leading cause of infant death in developed countries and accounts for four of every 10 infant deathshere, according to the authors.
They note that the SIDS rate had dropped steeply after information campaigns warning parents to avoid placing children to sleep in the prone position, from two per 1,000 live births to 0.8 per 1,000 live births. The study included 203 SIDS cases and 622 control infants born between 1994-98.
It found that “co-sleeping increases the SIDS risk by a factor of seven. This figure was increased to 16.47 when adjusted” for other factors.
Age was a key consideration, with the risk associated with bed sharing not significant for infants older than 20 weeks.
The study found that 39% of SIDS cases were co-sleeping and had mothers who smoked during pregnancy, compared with only 1% of controls.
Some countries, including Norway, recommended co-sleeping as a way to increase breast feeding, “which in itself has been said to reduce the SIDS risk”, the authors note.
More than 800 Irish babies were involved in the five-year study.
