Every year there are some 4,000 sudden unexpected infant deaths in the United States. Nearly a quarter of them are blamed on accidental strangulation or suffocation while sleeping. Despite those harrowing numbers, more than half of all infants are still placed in cribs with dangerous bedding.
Health experts at the American Academy of Pediatrics suggest newborn babies sleep in a crib free of any loose bedding or soft objects. But a new study conducted by researchers at the CDC and National Institutes of Health suggests only about 55 percent of parents are following that advice.
The new report, published this week in the journal Pediatrics, suggests that while soft bedding usage continues to decline, too many parents are failing to get the message. Statistics sourced from the National Infant Sleep Position study showed that bedding use dropped from 86 percent to 55 percent between 1993 and 2010.
But researchers say most of that decline occurred prior to 2000, suggesting the potency of AAP's public recommendations is declining. The report is an effort to reinvigorate outreach efforts and to better educate young mothers.
"Babies should sleep on a firm, safety-approved mattress with a fitted sheet, without any other bedding," Shapiro-Mendoza, a senior scientist with the CDC's Division of Reproductive Health, said in a press release. "Also important when placing the infant to sleep in a crib or bassinet is placing the infant on his or her back and not sharing a sleep surface with the infant."
The study also found that teenage mothers, as well as African-American and Hispanic moms, were more likely to use bedding for their infant children. Overall, researchers found that use of blankets on top of children continued to decline, but use of soft bedding under a sleeping baby became slightly more common over the last decade -- suggesting some mothers are only getting half the message.
It's not solely a lack of information that is the problem, the study authors say. Researchers found that as many as two-thirds of images in popular magazines targeting new mothers featured sleeping infants with potentially hazardous bedding, including blankets and pillows.
"Parents receive a lot of mixed messages," said study author Marian Willinger, a sudden infant death researcher at NIH. "Relatives may give them quilts or fluffy blankets as presents for the new baby, and they feel obligated to use them. Or they see magazine photos of babies with potentially unsafe bedding items."