Report of the Chief Medical Officer's Expert Group on the Sleeping Position of Infants and Cot Death / [chairman: Eileen D. Rubery].

  • Great Britain. Department of Health. Chief Medical Officer's Expert Group on the Sleeping Position of Infants and Cot Death
Date:
1993
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Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Report of the Chief Medical Officer's Expert Group on the Sleeping Position of Infants and Cot Death / [chairman: Eileen D. Rubery]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Sleeping Position and the Risks of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Peter J] Fleming and Alison J Stewart aet 12 The question of whether the infant’s sleeping position contributes to the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) has been addressed in many studies over the past 20 years’. Although none of the published studies found a lower risk of SIDS for babies sleeping prone, until recently there had been doubts concerning the methodologies of these studies, and there was some resistance within the health care professions to the concept that such a simple practice in infant care, and one which might be so easily amenable to change, could have a major effect. The purpose of this paper is to review the published evidence, some of which became available during the preparation of the Report. It forms the background to the recent decision by the United Kingdom Health Departments to recommend that (with particular exceptions) infants should not be put to sleep prone. 1.3 The published studies fall into 3 groups: (i) Retrospective case-control studies (ii) | Prospective studies Gii) Post-intervention studies (i) Retrospective case-control studies Over 20 such studies have now been published. The results are summarised in Table 1 and reference’. During the 1960s and early 1970s’, the incidence of prone sleeping in the control population was low (<5%) and in studies dating from this time an excess risk was found for infants not sleeping supine (ie for infants sleeping prone or on their sides). In all the later
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