The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Parents may want to think twice before allowing their babies to sleep in adult beds. A new American study claims that babies who sleep in adult beds are 40 times more likely to suffocate than those who slumber in cribs. "Where Should Infants Sleep?", a study conducted by researchers at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, appears in the new issue of the medical journal Pediatrics. During the 1990s, the study states, the risk of suffocation for American babies in cribs was 0.63 deaths per 100,000, compared to 25.5 deaths per 100,000 infants in adult beds. In the U.S., according to the data, there were 513 cases of infant suffocation between 1980 and 1983 and 883 cases between 1995 and 1998. The majority of the deaths studied were attributed to babies becoming trapped between the bed and the wall (52 per cent) or between the mattress and a part of the bed, such as the head board (30 per cent). "The numbers are gigantic, much higher than I had thought," Dr. James Kemp, one of the researchers, told the National Post.
