Babies Should Sleep on Their Backs: Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Since 1994, parents have been urged to place their babies to sleep on their backs in order to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Yet it turns out that not all caregivers have been warned; researchers have found that many parents are unaware of the risk of not placing their children to sleep on their backs.

More than 2,000 babies died from SIDS in 2010. While the precise cause for it is unknown, researchers are aware that sleeping on the back can reduce the risk of infant death. Yet it appears that more needs to be done to spread the word.

The researchers decided to compare the prevalence of supine sleep (sleeping on the back) for preterm and term infants. In all, the study included 392,397 infants born in 36 states.

So what did they find? It turns out that both preterm and term infants had suboptimal rates of supine sleep positioning after hospital discharge. In addition, sleep positioning varied widely by state; Alabama had the lowest rate of supine sleep at 50 percent, and Wisconsin had the highest rate at 81 percent.

"Given that supine sleep positioning significantly reduces an infant's risk for SIDS, it is worrisome that only two-thirds of full-term infants born in the U.S. are being placed back-to-sleep," said Sunah S. Hwang, one of the researchers, in a news release. "More concerning is that adherence to safe sleep positioning is even lower for preterm infants who are at even greater risk for SIDS compared to term infants."

The findings reveal that it's important to take more efforts to let parents know that they should place their babies to sleep on their backs rather than on their stomachs.

"Given the concerning data about inadequate adherence to safe sleep practices for all infants and in particular for preterm infants, we need to better engage families about adhering to safe sleep practices at the individual, community, hospital and public health levels," said Hwang in a news release.