Sudden infant death babies not in the marriage bed

If babies sleep in their parents' bed, the risk of sudden child death increases

05/23/2013

For many parents, it is self-evident that their child sleeps in their bed during the first months of their lives, but this significantly increases the risk of sudden child death, the warning said in a recent article in the „British Medical Journal“. The research team led by Robert Carpenter of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has recently evaluated five previous studies on the causes of sudden infant death and came to the conclusion „that 88 percent of the sudden child deaths that occurred during the common bed rest would not have occurred if sharing the bed had been avoided“, reports the British trade magazine.

According to the authors, given the new findings, the previous recommendations in the UK must be changed, since it has been assumed that there is no risk for babies while sleeping in the parent bed, as long as „no parent smokes, consumes alcohol or drugs.“ However, even under these conditions, the risk of sudden infant deaths for children under three months is about five times higher, reports Carpenter and colleagues. As a possible cause of the significantly increased risk, the doctors suspect in particular an overheating and respiratory problems of the child.

Sleep in the parent bed as a risk factor?
The desire to keep the newborn as close as possible is only understandable. Also, sharing the parent's bed with the baby, for example, facilitates nightly breastfeeding. In Britain, charities such as the „National Childbirth Trust“ In the past ten years, even used for sleeping together in the parents' bed, as the risk of sudden child death as „Carpenter and co-workers report, however, that the current study shows that it is by no means a negligible risk, in fact, even with the avoidance of all known risk factors, there is an increased likelihood of the disease being negligible to observe sudden child death, explain the doctors.

Three times higher risk of sudden infant death
For their analysis, the scientists use the raw data from five previous case-control studies to create a combined dataset of 1,472 cases of sudden infant death and 4,679 controls. The original studies were a trans-European study and four national studies from Scotland, New Zealand, Ireland and Germany. Children were considered until the age of one year. Even „under the best of circumstances (i.e., in breastfed babies without parental risk factors), the risk of sudden infant death syndrome was 2.7 times higher when infants slept in a parent's bed“, the researchers write. In the worst case, in bottle-fed children, where both parents were smokers and alcohol consumers, the risk of sudden infant death was even 15.6 times higher, the Carpenter and colleagues write. The highest risk would have been inferior children under the age of three months. For them, sleeping with parents in bed should generally be taboo, according to the researchers.

Sudden Kindestod most common cause of death in children under one year
Although the causes of the increased risk of sudden infant death from sleeping in the parent's bed have not yet been fully elucidated, various factors have been identified in the past that appear to play a significant role here. In most cases a connection with the not yet fully functioning temperature regulation of the babies is suspected, but an increased risk of asphyxiation is often also indicated as the cause of the risk of sudden infant death when sleeping in the parent bed. Overall, however, the case numbers fortunately remain limited. In Germany, between 125 and 350 cases of sudden infantile deaths have been recorded in recent years. Even with these seemingly small numbers of cases, sudden infant death syndrome is the leading cause of death among babies in modern industrialized nations. Parents should therefore attach special importance to the avoidance of all known risk factors.

Minimize risk of sudden infant death
To minimize the risk of sudden infant death, which occurs in most cases during sleep, the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) recommends the child as supine, not with a blanket, but to sleep in a sleeping bag in their own bed. Pillows, cuddly toys and other items in the cot should be avoided. The room temperature is according to BZgA ideally set to 16 to 18 degrees Celsius. The clothing should consist of a maximum of a body and a pajamas to avoid overheating of the children. Caps or headgear should be avoided altogether. Also, according to BZgA the pacifier is attributed a preventive effect against sudden infant death syndrome.

Parents, who like to feel close to their child during the night, but do not want to take the babies to bed because of the risk of sudden child death, can use a so-called baby balcony, which can be attached to the side of the parent bed, and still provide the children with one secures separate area. (Fp)

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Picture: Manuel Bendig