One of parents’ many concerns is ensuring that their newborn sleeps safely. There are several precautions that parents and other caregivers can take to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, which continues to be the third leading cause of infant death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In October, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released expanded guidelines for reducing the risk of SIDS. The guidelines emphasize the long-established recommendation to always place a baby to sleep on his or her back, and now include recommendations for reducing sleep-related deaths from other causes, including suffocation, entrapment and asphyxia.

Among the AAP’s recommendations: 

• Parents should always use a firm safety-approved crib mattress when placing infants on their back to sleep.
• Babies should never share a bed with parents, other adults, children or siblings, including twins, but may sleep in a safety-approved crib in the same room.
• Offer infants a pacifier at nap and bedtime and avoid covering an infant’s face or overheating a baby.
• Soft objects, such as pillows, blankets and stuffed animals should be removed from the sleeping surface.
• Bumper pads should be not used in cribs. This is a new guideline and the AAP says that there is no evidence that bumper pads prevent injuries, yet there is a risk of suffocation, strangulation and entrapment.

The AAP also recommends that new mothers breastfeed, as research has shown that breastfeeding has been associated with a reduced risk of SIDS. Evidence also suggests that immunizations reduce the risk of SIDS by 50 percent, therefore the AAP is recommending that infants be immunized.

It is also very important that babies have supervised, awake tummy time each day to promote development and to minimize the occurrence of “flat head.”

The expanded guidelines propose more education for healthcare and child care providers – those who can model these recommendations for parents. It is important that healthcare providers communicate all of the risk factors of SIDS during the prenatal period, at birth and throughout the first year of an infant’s life. In addition to new parents, detailed education should be given to all other caregivers, such as grandparents and babysitters. In New Jersey, these educational offerings are developed and provided by the SIDS Center of New Jersey.

The AAP’s risk-reducing guidelines are considered by experts to be the most effective interventions to date for reducing the risk of SIDS and death from suffocation and strangulation. The expanded recommendations are based on multiple studies including one done at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School describing the risk factors associated with bedsharing in sleep. An additional study showed that 78 percent of SIDS-related deaths were associated with the existence of more than one risk factor.

Complete guidelines of risk reduction practices recommended by the AAP can be found on the SIDS Center of New Jersey website: www.umdnj.edu/sids. In addition to education, the program provides families with culturally sensitive bereavement support and monitors changes in SIDS rates and the presence of risk factors associated with it.

Courtesy of Barbara Ostfeld, Ph.D., program director, and Thomas Hegyi, M.D., the co-medical director, of The SIDS Center of New Jersey (SCNJ) in the Department of Pediatrics at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.  Established in 1988, the SCNJ operates under a grant to UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School from the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. An additional site based at The Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center receives funding from the CJ Foundation for SIDS.