A new study that has been published in the journal of Pediatrics reports that 12 percent of almost 8,000 infant sleeping deaths have occurred in the sofa. The same study establishes that infants who sleep on the sofa are twice likely to die in their sleep than if they sleep anywhere else in the house.
24 percent of infant deaths that occur with the victim sleeping on the sofa is caused by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS. Another 40 percent is attributed to suffocation or strangulation during sleep, while 36 of these infant deaths have unclear causes. This 24 percent of infant death widely contributes to the annual mortality of SIDS in America that is, as of present, at 4,000.
In relation to SIDS, about 40 percent infants who died in their sleep while laden on a sofa are born to mothers who have smoked during pregnancy. Smoking, among many others, is a risk factor for SIDS.
Digging further into the scenarios of infant deaths that happened on the sofa, researchers of the study have discovered that about 90 percent of these deaths happened while the infants share the sofa with an adult.
This brings researchers to a conclusion that these deaths were primarily caused by suffocation where the infant may have been placed in between the adult and the back cushions or in between cushions without the knowledge of the attending adult.
The softness of a sofa, on top of the back cushions which can fall on a sleeping infant and cause suffocation, is a danger for an infant who may easily roll over or fall off while lying on or even while sitting on it.
Pediatricians have been advising parents to allow their little ones to sleep on their backs as sleeping on their stomachs can hamper breathing.
In order to prevent such dreaded infant deaths, parents are urged to follow the ABC of safe infant sleep: A-lone, on their B-ack and in their C-rib.
