 News
11th May 2006
Parents ignoring cot death advice
Babies are being put at risk of cot death because of parent
concerns over 'flat head syndrome'.
New research by the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths found that
a fifth of babies are at risk because their parents are not following
advice to lie their babies on their back.
A failure to put babies on their backs increases the danger of cot death
by nine times.
FSID fears increasing publicity about flat head syndrome, or plagiocephaly,
has caused the figure to double since 2000.
Plagiocephaly can be avoided if people let babies play on their fronts.
FSID say the condition is "entirely cosmetic, almost always corrects
itself within a year, and may be avoided if parents give the baby plenty
of awake time on the front or sitting up".
It has now produced a new leaflet 'Sleep on the back, play on the front',
highlighting the safe-sleep message, and explaining the importance of
supervised front play.
The study of 1,545 mothers with babies under a year old found almost
one in five mothers with babies aged under six months never give their
babies front play time although 63 per cent of mothers regularly give
them time to play on their back on the floor.
Joyce Epstein, FSID's director, said the new research was alarming. "Our
fear is that the lifesaving message to sleep babies on the back to reduce
the risk of cot death will be undermined by a mistaken perception that
flattened heads poses a greater danger. It does not."
Clare Jolly, health visitor advisor to FSID, said flat head syndrome
does not do any medical harm, and does not need to be rectified with expensive
treatments or devices.
"We are seeing more babies with flattened heads because they are spending
so much of their waking time lying flat on the back.
"Parents often wrongly think they should not let their baby be on the
front at all.
"When a baby is awake they should enjoy different positions from the
very beginning."
Peta Smith, vice chairwoman of the Association of Paediatric Chartered
Physiotherapists , said, "The first few months of life are an important
time for babies to start to become aware of their bodies and develop the
skills they require for rolling over, sitting and crawling.
"Simple measures like giving your baby supervised tummy time every day
will help them co-ordinate, balance and control their body and give them
a foundation for all movement and skills."
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