Why Caregivers Choose Infant Sleep Position

(February 3, 2010) - A large body of research has shown that placing infants on their backs to sleep reduces the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), the leading cause of death during the first year of life in the United States. (Read about "SIDS & Sleeping Position") So why don't caregivers always put infants to sleep on their backs? Researchers say they have identified three principal factors linked to whether caregivers place infants to sleep on their backs. Those three factors are:

• whether they received a physician's recommendation to place infants only on their backs for sleep
• fear that the infant might choke while sleeping on the back
• concerns for an infant's comfort while sleeping on the back

"Placing infants on their backs for sleep remains the single most effective means we know to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome," said Marian Willinger, Ph.D., Special Assistant for SIDS research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which funded the analysis. "For the vast majority of infants, concerns about choking while back sleeping are unfounded."

Dr. Willinger noted that certain conditions might prompt a physician to consider recommending against back placement. However, such recommendations are arrived at only after careful deliberation and after taking into account all the potential risks and benefits for the infant involved.

The survey also found that after increasing steadily, the proportion of infants placed to sleep on their backs leveled off in the years since 2001.

The survey asked nighttime caregivers (mostly mothers): "Do you have a position you usually place your baby in?"

The researchers found that families who placed their infants on their backs were unlikely to say that they were concerned about their baby choking, or were unlikely to say that they were concerned that their baby would be uncomfortable on their back. These families also were likely to report that their doctor recommended back placement as the sole sleep position.

Conversely, caregivers who were concerned about infant choking, about infant comfort, and who had not received a recommendation for back-only placement from their physician were less likely to indicate that they had placed their infants to sleep on their backs.