A researcher with the Avera Center for Pediatric and Community Research has published the results of a new study on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Chief Clinical Research Officer Dr. Amy Elliott, PhD, is the corresponding and co-first author of the study, along with Hannah Kinney, MD, of Boston Children’s Hospital.
The research published yesterday (Jan. 20) in eClinicalMedicine reveals findings showing smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol during pregnancy significantly increase the risk of SIDS.
Elliott says the major finding was if women drink and smoke beyond the first trimester of pregnancy, risk for SIDS goes up by almost 12 times. She says past studies have looked into the risk caused by smoking alone or drinking alone during pregnancy. This is the first large-scale prospective study to look into the two factors together and the first to consider smoking and drinking throughout the entire pregnancy. Elliott says both behaviors are dangerous to unborn infants but combined the two have a synergistic effect upon risk for SIDS.
The Avera Center for Pediatric and Community Research enrolled approximately 5,500 of the moms early in pregnancy and followed them through the babies’ first year of life.
Elliott says the major public health message to come out of this study should be a strong warning against drinking alcohol and/or smoking cigarettes during pregnancy – especially after the first trimester. She says it’s important to recognize not everyone who drinks and smokes during pregnancy will lose their child to SIDS, but they are risk factors.
Elliott also says the study also should not be construed to mean every mother whose baby dies of SIDS drank and/or smoked during pregnancy. There are multiple factors that contribute to SIDS deaths, and sometimes these deaths are entirely unexplained. She says any unexpected death of an infant is a family tragedy.
The Safe Passage Study, funded by three National Institutes of Health institutes, was a prospective study that followed 10,088 women, 11,892 pregnancies and 12,029 fetuses to one year after delivery. Subjects were from five US sites– including two American Indian Reservations– as well as two sites in Cape Town, South Africa.
There are 3.5 million live births per year in the United States, and approximately 2,500 infants die of SIDS each year.
Sometimes, SIDS cannot be prevented, but there are ways to lessen the risk:
- Do not drink or smoke during pregnancy
- Place your baby to sleep on their back in their own crib or bassinet
- Use a firm mattress and avoid placing thick bedding, pillows or fluffy toys in the crib
- Breastfeed your baby if possible
- Don’t allow your baby to become overheated
- Have your baby sleep in your room for the first year, alone in a separate crib or bassinet and not in bed with you
The Avera Center for Pediatric and Community Research has locations in Sioux Falls, Rapid City and Pine Ridge, S.D. This research team of 26 works to understand factors that determine the health of a certain population, and how to improve it. It conducts studies that will help answer crucial questions about the effects that physical, chemical, biological, social and behavioral environments have on the health of children.
