Thursday, October 4, 2012

Did You Know it is SIDS Awareness Month?

What is SIDS?

It's Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and is the leading cause of death of babies in the US. Many times SIDS happens because a baby may have abnormal or  immature functioning of the heart and/or breathing. The bottom line is that no one knows for sure why SIDS happens. 

There are things we can do as parents try and prevent SIDS from happening.

  • Put your baby back to sleep. Meaning, don't lay them on their tummy. This doesn't mean that your child shouldn't get tummy time. Just try and give them tummy time when you are in the same room. 
  • Buy a swaddle blanket, or a baby sleeping bag. These are handy and your child can't get all twisted up in them like they can with a blanket. Plus it keeps them warm because they can't push it off like they can a blanket.

Source
  • Get rid of the bumper. Many crib sets still come with a bumper. There are some safe ones out there, but there aren't many.  I cut my son's up and made pictures on the walls with them. The room still looked cute and I felt better knowing he was safe.
  • Give them the binky. There's been thoughts that the pacifier is bad. It's good to give them when your baby knows how to latch to feed. Once that is established, give them the binky. What you don't want is nipple confusion to happen. Once they are ready for the binky, the sucking motion keeps them breathing. It's a good thing. When they start throwing their binky out of the crib it's their sign of saying, "I'm done with this thing." After they get a lot of teeth, a pacifier isn't the best on them. 
Mom4Life has their prevention of SIDS products on sale this week.