Reduce The Risk Of SIDS

SIDS is the third leading cause of death in infants between the ages of 1 month and 1 year and currently the exact cause is unknown. It is the unexpected, sudden death of an infant under age 1 in which an autopsy does not show an explainable cause of death.

Many physicians and researchers now believe that SIDS is caused by problems with sleep arousal and an inability to sense a buildup of carbon dioxide in the blood. Almost all SIDS deaths occur without any warning or symptoms, when the infant is thought to be sleeping.

The most important way to prevent SIDS is to place infants on their back when putting them to sleep.

Some infants are at a higher risk than others, such as babies who were one of a set of twins or other multiple births; were delivered premature; or have a sibling with SIDS. If a mother smoked or abused substances during pregnancy, if she was very young when she gave birth, received late prenatal care, or is of a low socioeconomic status, the baby is also at a higher risk for SIDS.

The incidence of SIDS has dropped by almost one-half since the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that parents place infants on their back or side when sleeping. Other recommendations for preventing SIDS include:

• Place your baby on a firm, tight fitting mattress, and remove all comforters and other bulky bedding.
• Do NOT let your baby become too hot (don't overdress).
• Keep your baby in a smoke-free environment, and don’t smoke during pregnancy.
• Do NOT lay your baby on pillows, beanbags, or sheepskin mattresses.
• Breastfeed your baby. While breastfeeding has not shown to decrease the incidence of SIDS directly, it does decrease the incidence of some upper respiratory infections, which may influence the development of SIDS.
• Have your baby's caretakers attend an infant CPR class.
• If your baby stops breathing or turns blue, call 911.

The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed medical professional should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, is made as to the accuracy, reliability, timeliness, or correctness of any translations made by a third-party service of the information provided herein into any other language.

© 1997- A.D.A.M., a business unit of Ebix, Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.

All content on this site including text, images, graphics, audio, video, data, metadata, and compilations is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. You may view the content for personal, noncommercial use. Any other use requires prior written consent from Ebix. You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, display, publish, reverse-engineer, adapt, modify, store beyond ordinary browser caching, index, mine, scrape, or create derivative works from this content. You may not use automated tools to access or extract content, including to create embeddings, vectors, datasets, or indexes for retrieval systems. Use of any content for training, fine-tuning, calibrating, testing, evaluating, or improving AI systems of any kind is prohibited without express written consent. This includes large language models, machine learning models, neural networks, generative systems, retrieval-augmented systems, and any software that ingests content to produce outputs. Any unauthorized use of the content including AI-related use is a violation of our rights and may result in legal action, damages, and statutory penalties to the fullest extent permitted by law. Ebix reserves the right to enforce its rights through legal, technological, and contractual measures.

© 1997- All rights reserved.