SIDS rate declines, but accidental suffocations rise

The rate of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, has declined, largely as a result of campaigns teaching parents to put their infants to bed on their backs. But overall, reports of deaths from accidental suffocation have risen.

A study comparing infant-suffocation cases in the 1980s to those in the 1990s found that infant deaths in adult beds were 8.1 times more likely to be reported in the 1990s, and infant deaths on sofas and chairs were 17.2 times more likely to be reported.

The risk of suffocation was about 40 times higher for infants in adult beds compared with those sleeping in cribs. The risk for babies in cribs has declined 25%, probably as a result of mandatory crib safety standards developed in the 1970s, St. Louis University School of Medicine researchers concluded.

In both decades, the primary cause of death of children sleeping in adult beds is entrapment, in which the baby becomes wedged between a part of the bed, such as the headboard, and the mattress (29.6%) or between the bed and the wall (52.3%).

The second-most common cause of death was “overlying,” meaning the infant was accidentally covered by another person.

The study is published in the October issue of Pediatrics.

-- Dianne Partie Lange