Stomach sleeping, SIDS, and some new study?

Neither a google search nor a pubmed search turns up any new research on this topic.

EDIT: Rae's Mommy -- you don't seem to understand how statistics work. SIDS is not 'caused by' stomach sleeping, and nobody has ever claimed that it was. But stomach sleeping increases the RISK of SIDS. Of course not all babies who sleep on their stomach die. (For many years that was the recommended position, and obviously the human race did not die out.) SIDS is very uncommon regardless of sleep position, but babies who sleep on their bellies are at roughly twice the risk. IF your baby won't/can't sleep on her back, then you need to decide for yourself if the increased risk is acceptable to you. But claiming that the research is 'nonsense' just because your baby is still alive is pretty foolish. (I never rode in a carseat as a baby -- and I'm still alive. Should we conclude that carseats are useless and don't save lives?)

I know you said you know "back to sleep" is best, but maybe this will help you explain it to her

A common misconception about SIDS is that babies choke or smother, but it really has more to do with breathing. While asleep our breathing pattern can change, older children and adults have the natural ability to correct the breathing and keep sleeping. The problem with belly sleeping is that the pressure on baby's chest and belly slows reflexes. So, when and infant's breathing pattern changes, he doesn't correct it and simply stops breathing.

As mentioned in a previous answer, this isn't the only way SIDS happens.

I wasn't able to find the study your MIL told you about, but I can tell you that before the "Back to Sleep" Campaign more than 5000 babies died of SIDS each year and now the numbers are below 3000.

I also think that one of the reasons mothers choose to let their babies belly sleep is because infants often wake when being transfered from Mommy to bed due to the startle reflex. A good way to stop this is swaddling.

Good luck and don't worry about what your MIL says or thinks. It's your child and this is just the first of many things that you will disagree on when it comes to raising your child.

My daughter will not sleep on her belly at all. She is 6 months. I was worried at the start as she was nearly 5 months when starting to sleep on her belly. But now I am not worried, she moves when she is uncomfortable etc.. I always check on her when she is sleeping and she still wakes during the night for a bottle.. try not to think about SIDS because you would make yourself ill. Just relax and enjoy every moment spent with your new baby. Best of Luck with the birth... and remember mothers know best, That has been the saying for so many generations. x

Also she slept a lot on her belly from day 1 aswell because if on her back all she would do was cry but as soon as I placed her on her back she would sleep soundly. What was I suppose to do, Have an unhappy baby or settled baby.

I haven't heard of it, but here's the thing: no one can prove without a doubt that stomach sleeping actually causes SIDS deaths. What they can do is say that there's a lower incidence of SIDS deaths when babies sleep on their backs.

That said, outside of a laboratory, there are a lot of other variables that can impact the outcome in any situation.

The point here is that yes, there seems to be a corolation between back sleeping and reducing the risk of SIDS, but there's no way to be 100% certain that that's the only factor reducing the incidence.

I've never let my daughter sleep on her stomach. She's a few days shy of 3 months. However, my daughter seems to be comfortable on her back and has never shown an interest in sleeping on her belly. I would probably allow her to sleep on her belly if I were awake as I will sometimes let her sleep on a pillow if I'm up and about. I co-sleep with my daughter, and a lot of times, she rolls onto her side so she can snuggle into me. I was terrified at first of this, but have since eased off. I sleep alot lighter with her in the bed and have always woken up with her every little grunt and movement. As for SIDs, I don't worry about it too much. I take precautions for it not to happen, but I'm not going to drive myself mad over what ifs.

I wouldn't worry about finding studies to cite to your MIL. It is your baby, your decision. If she says anything all you have to tell her is that your pediatrician recommends back sleeping until they can roll over.

No studies on SIDS are too informative, there are no real answers. The only thing that can be said is that the rate of SIDS showed a significant decrease after the back to sleep campaign was started, they do not know why. It is assumed that the decrease has to do with sleeping on the back.

Feel free to beleive your MIL or not. Scientific studies are open to interpretation, like the one that said Nutrasweet gave you cancer, and it had to be put on all the sweetener packages...etc. In that study what they didn't tell you was that the rats were forced to eat 80 times their own body weight in nutra sweet! I'm sorry but if you have to eat 80 times your body weight in carrots, fruits and berries you are going to get sick!

I am a scientist and I can tell you that all studies can be skewed to one perspective, in other words you can crunch the data any way you want to get the results that you want. You can start off with 100 babies and then drop all the red heads because of their unique recessive red head gene...okay down to 92, then ban all kids whos parents make over 75K a year because they probably had more check ups. Okay down to 72, then drop the kids who had siblings, because they could affect the outcome if they slept in the same room as the baby, and you are down to 30, then if 16 of those kids are belly sleepers you honestly get to say that out of 100 kids tested and found to be in the normal range over half were belly sleepers and none of them died from SIDS, even if 50 of those kids died of SIDS, they weren't in the acceptable range of monitoring so they weren't counted!

Kind of gives you a new perspective on scientific reports! And for the record you can plan on making your kid into a back sleeper but when you discover one day that they sleep 8 hours on their bellies at one time and only in 15 minute intervals on their back, you may change your story, I did! My Dr. said the elevate my crib if my kid just HAD to be a belly sleeper.

It all comes down to personal choice, make sure to make your own choices and don't let anyone tell you differently!

my baby is 3 months old and refuses to sleep on her back and i do worry about sids but i have to say that babies have been sleeping on there tummys for ages so i think there are other risk factors that babys who do pass from sids encounter. that being said try and lower the risk factors as much as possible, dont smoke around baby dont wrap baby to tight. but i have to say to jill that sids is the unexplained death in an infant, suffocation can be explained ie getting tangled in aa blanket so i have to disagree and say no suffocation is not sids.

I have not heard about this study, but I do know this -- "SIDS" refers to ANY form of crib death, no matter the cause. Suffocation is ONE cause of SIDS, but there are many other causes, and sometimes the cause is not even known. A baby may die regardless of sleep position if the cause is something other than suffocation, but a baby is CERTAINLY more likely to suffocate if placed on its stomach when it cannot lift or turn its head. So you can tell her that, or you can tell her nothing at all -- your baby, your decision. Good luck!

SIDS is an unexplained death of an infant. There is no proven cause.