Sharing a bed with other children, ...

Sharing a bed with other children, sleeping upon soft bedding, and sleeping onward the stomach all increase infants' risk of unlooked for infant death syndrome (SIDS), according to a May 5 2003 novels release from the National Institutes of Health. Researchers studied the 260 SIDS deaths of infants from birth to undivided year of age that occurr in Chicago between November 1993 and April 1996 The infants were predominantly African American. Information about each infant who died from SIDS was compared to information for a live infant of comparable age, birth weight, and racial or ethnic group

Infants who died of SIDS were 54 times more likely to have shared a bed with other children. Sleeping with a mother alone or with a mother and father also were associated with risk for SIDS, moreover the results were not statistically significant.

sum of two units known risk factors for SIDS--sleeping forward soft bedding and sleeping forward the stomach--were found to nonplus a much greater risk if they occurr together. pliable bedding poses five times the risk of firm bedding, and sleeping forward the stomach increases the risk 24 times compared to sleeping forward the back. Infants who slept one as well as the other on soft bedding and upon their stomachs, however, had 21 times the risk of those who slept forward firm bedding and on their backs. Fifteen of the SIDS deaths occurr after a child was enjoin to sleep on a sofa. The researchers do not know for what purpose sleeping on a sofa increases the risk for SIDS; however, they warned that this practice appears to be dangerous.

Bed Sharing with Siblings, easily moulded Bedding, Increase SIDS Risk (new release, Bethesda, Md: Notional Institutes of Health, May 5 2003) http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/may 2003/nichd-05.htm (accessed 7 May 2003)

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