Change in Sleeping Habits May Have Cut Infant Deaths

University of Washington researchers said Monday that advice to parents against allowing infants to sleep face down has reduced the incidence of sudden infant death syndrome in the United States.

Sometimes called crib death, it is the most common cause of death in developed countries among children between 1 month and 1 year.

“We believe the balance of the evidence to be overwhelmingly against the continued use of the prone position and that a national campaign to inform parents on the risk of the prone position in the first six months of life should be given serious consideration,” said the report from the University of Washington in Seattle.

The study was published in the February edition of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

In April, 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that the face-down position be avoided.

In the ensuing six months there was a 12% drop in the number of SIDS cases reported nationally compared to the previous year, the study said.

If there is a national campaign to alert parents to the danger, the study said, it should also “draw parents’ attention to other actions that will lower the risk of sudden death--namely breast-feeding, not smoking, not having the baby sleep in the parents’ bed and not overheating the baby with too many clothes or blankets.”

In an editorial published in the same journal, Carl Hunt of the Medical College of Ohio, in Toledo, cautioned that more study is needed before concluding that a change in sleeping position is the sole answer to reducing sudden infant deaths.