Nation IN BRIEF : NATIONWIDE : Campaign to Reduce Crib Deaths Succeeds

The simple act of putting babies to bed on their backs instead of their stomachs may be the reason for a 30% drop in sudden infant death syndrome in the United States, a federal study says. Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Washington, D.C., said the dramatic change in the rate of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, has to be attributed to a campaign to bed babies on their back “because nothing else has changed.”