For this
week's blog, we were asked to look into some of the different health problems
facing infants. I chose SIDS to take a closer look at. When I was 10, my
cousin's daughter passed away at her daycare from SIDS. Laynie was a sweet 5
month old about to be 6 months, around the age that they say you don't have to
be worried anymore about SIDS. She had been dropped off at daycare that morning
by her momma and was in fine spirits. The daycare put her down for her nap and
after they thought she had been sleeping too long, someone went to wake her to
find that she wasn't breathing.
This
tragedy that my family endured happens too often, but thankfully has started to
decrease drastically in the United States. In part, we have Dr. Susan Beal to
thank for that as her research showed that tummy-sleeping babies are at more
risk for SIDS. After her research became public, doctors started recommending
that babies sleep on their backs (Berger, 155). "In 1984, SIDS killed
5,245 babies in the United States” (Berger, 155). In 1994, a campaign to
promote babies sleeping on their backs being the best position, helped cut the
number of deaths down drastically. In
2017 there were approximately 1,400 SIDS deaths in the United States
(CDC). It's unfortunate that while we have an idea of some things that
seem to cause SIDS, but there are many factors that Dr. Beal, along with
other researchers, believe could heighten the risk of SIDS. Those risks being:
"low birthweight, winter, being male, exposure to cigarettes, soft
blankets or pillows, bed-sharing, and physical abnormalities (in the brainstem,
heart, mitochondria, microbiome)" (Berger, 155).
In other
parts of the world, its seen that developing countries are the ones hit hardest
by SIDS. Africa seems to be the continent with the most SIDS deaths around 55
per 1,000 live births. However, the country with the most deaths is Afghanistan
with a staggering 112.8 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Resources:
Data and Statistics - SIDS and SUID-CDC. (n.d.). Retrieved
from https://www.cdc.gov/sids/data.htm
Berger, K. S. (2018). The developing
person through childhood (8th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Thank you for sharing the blog and bringing awareness to SIDS. I was heartbroken to read that your cousin's daughter passed away at daycare due to SIDS. I wasn't aware of heighten risk of SIDS such as birth weight, winter, and being a male. Great information and resources.
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