Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

You may wake up in the middle of the night and hear nothing, and suddenly it is a bad sign. Your baby is not making a sound. You jump up to go check on her. She looks allright, but is she breathing? You have to check her to make sure.

The cold hard reality is that Sudden Infant Death Syndrom, other wise known as SIDS, does indeed happen. SIDS is more common in children under the age of twelve months then at any other time. Infact SIDS is the leading cause of death among ingants who are one month to a year old, and claims the lives of about 2,500 infants each year in the United States alone. Despite years of research, it remains unpredictable.

The name alone explains itself, SIDS is the sudden and unexplained death of an infant who is younger than one year old. It is a frightening prospect because it can strike without warning, usually in a seemingly healthy infant.Most SIDS deaths are associated with sleep, and infants who die of SIDS show no signs of suffering.

Most SIDS diagnoses come only after all other possible causes of death have been ruled out through a review fo the infant's medical history and environment. The review that is done helps to determine the true cause of death, rather it be SIDs or several risk factors combined may contributed to cause an at-risk infant to di of SIDS.

Most deaths among children that die of SIDS are usually between the ages of two months through four months and these incidences increase during cold weather. African-American infants are about three times more likely to die of SIDS than caucasian infants.

There are some other potential factors and these are as followed:

smoking, drinking, or drug use during pregnancy
poor prenatal care
prematurity or low birth-weight
mothers younger than twenty
smoke exposure following birth
overheating from exvessive sleepwear and beddign
stomach sleeping

Docotors now recommend that every child be placed on it's back when it is layed down to go to sleep. You should place your baby on a firm mattress to sleep. Do not place the child around fluffy blankets or toys and never on a pillow.

Keep your room at a temperature taht feels comfortagle for an adult in a short sleeve shirt. This is to ensure that the baby does not get to overheated. Place a light blanket over the infant instead of a heavy one.

Do not smoke, drink, or do any drugs that are not prescribed by your doctor while you are pregnant. Always tell your doctor what kind of medication that you are on. Do not expose your infant to second hand smoke.

Make sure that you can get in to see a doctor as soon as possible and go to every appointment.Make sure that the infant goes to all of it's well baby check ups. If at all possible, then breast feed.

Try to refrain from having the child to sleep in the same bed as you. The child may suffecate on the bedding or pillows.

Until doctors can find a reason and a cure for Infant Death Syndrom, then we need to do all that we can to help protect our little ones from the dangers of life.