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Can a Used Mattress Cause SIDS?
Excerpt By Ed Edelson,
HealthScoutNews
(HealthScoutNews)
-- A baby who sleeps on a mattress that was used by another child
may be at increased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS),
a Scottish study finds.
"Insufficient evidence is available
to judge whether this relationship is cause and effect,"
say the authors of the study, which appears in tomorrow's issue
of the British Medical Journal.
And an American pediatrician says
the findings should be viewed with skepticism.
However, the researcher who led the
study says there's a strong suspicion that previously used infant
mattresses can be breeding grounds for dangerous bacteria. And
those germs could contribute to an infection that might be tied
to SIDS.
"Saliva basically sits in the
foam block and builds up," says Dr. David Tappin, a senior
lecturer in pediatrics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow.
"We feel that bacteria can remain in the mattress for a long
time. And a mattress can provide a good culture medium for other
bacteria."
The study compared 131 babies who
died of SIDS in Scotland between 1996 and 2000, and 278 healthy
infants. It was based on a questionnaire that controlled for the
effects of socioeconomic status and other factors that could affect
the risk of sudden infant death.
Overall, there was a threefold increase
in SIDS deaths associated with a used infant mattress. A more
detailed analysis of the questionnaires found that the risk was
greatest if the mattress came from another home, the study says.
This is the second study to show an
association between a used mattress and SIDS, Tappin says. He
was involved in the previous study, which was published in 1997.
"If you find something like this,
you want to repeat it to show the finding was not due to chance,"
he says. "We've done that and found the same potential risk
factor."
Research to determine whether virulent
bacteria can thrive in used mattresses is being done at the University
of Leicester in England, but the results are not yet available,
Tappin says.
Dr. Michael H. Malloy is a professor
of pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston
and a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics. He says
he's cautious about the study's conclusion because data in the
study indicate that factors other than a used mattress could be
to blame for the SIDS deaths.
"The authors say they controlled
for socioeconomic status. But if you look at the distribution
[of the deaths], there is no question that the cases [deaths]
were in a more deprived group than the controls [the healthy infants],"
Malloy says.
While the Scottish researchers
made a diligent effort to account for all factors that might affect
SIDS risk, Malloy says, "it is possible that they were not
able to completely do away with the bias. If the cases [deaths]
were in a more deprived group, the likelihood of a higher risk
is not terribly surprising."
Malloy says parents should concentrate
on practices that have clearly been shown to help prevent SIDS,
such as not allowing infants to sleep face down, but rather on
their back.
"My advice would be to provide
the infant with a firm mattress, put it [the infant] in a supine
position to sleep, use no quilts or bulky pillows, refrain from
smoking and breast-feed," Malloy says.
What To Do
For more information about the
risk factors for SIDS and how to avoid them, visit the American
Academy of Pediatrics. To learn more about SIDS, check with
the American SIDS
Institute.
Reference
Source 101
For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick
Prevention Resources".
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