Large rise in infant sofa deaths

This is an intriguing story on a strange phenomenon of babies dying while sleeping on sofas… with a parent!

Cases of babies dying from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) have fallen dramatically over 20 years but deaths while sleeping with a parent on a sofa have risen 400 percent, researchers said on Wednesday.

The findings by doctors at the Royal Hospital for Children in Bristol, England show that campaigns to inform parents about SIDS, or cot deaths, have had an impact.

But Professor Peter Fleming, who headed the research team, said parents need to be aware of the danger of falling asleep with a baby on a sofa.

“The numbers of deaths of babies in bed with their mothers has gone down by 50 percent but the number of deaths on a sofa with a parent has gone up by 400 percent, a four-fold increase,” Fleming said in an interview.

“Some of the mothers had not appreciated how hazardous sleeping on a sofa with their baby was,” he added.

The reasons why it is so dangerous are unclear.

Although the findings are based on British data, Fleming said the results reported online by The Lancet medical journal would probably be representative of most developed countries.

SIDS, in which babies die inexplicably in their sleep, is the leading cause of death in children under a year old. Its cause is unknown but lying the infant face-down, parental smoking and old mattresses which may harbor bacteria have been cited as possible causes.

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