A quick reminder about the importance of sleep safety.
A May 2019 review by the American Academy of Pediatrics showed that many infant suffocation deaths are preventable and due to unsafe sleep practices! Sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) describes the sudden/unexpected death of a child under the age of 1, where the cause is not evident util investigation. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reviewed 250 cases between 2011 and 2014 of “explained suffocation” per the Center for Disease Control’s SUID registry. This was approximately 14% of the total 1,812 reported to CDC in that time period. The average age of death was 3 months old.
Most of these external causes included soft bedding, overlays and wedging. Overlay happens when another person rolls on or against the child. Wedging is when a child gets wedged between a mattress and a wall or other object. The commonality in these situations is the child is not safely sleeping alone in their crib on their back, they are non-supine and in an adult bed.
Though Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) rates have been declining with current back-to-sleep protocol, the rate of “accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed” mortality rates have been increasing since 1997!
A quick reminder that co-sleeping dramatically increases the risk of accidental suffocation.
Here is the current sleep recommendations put forth but the American Academy of Pediatrics:
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