Are You Blogging About That Again??

Yes. Yes, I am. I know that I am a crazy woman, but I just can't help it. SIDS is probably the scariest thing for me right now as a parent. Part of the reason I find it so frightening is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the circumstances that add to the risk of SIDS and because scientists still don't know the cause of SIDS. Let me give you some examples. All of these have been taken from the American Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Institute's website. Here's the address if you are interested in checking it out: http://www.sids.org/.

1. "Don’t get pregnant during the teenage years. If you are a teen and already have one infant, take extreme caution not to become pregnant again. The SIDS rate decreases for babies born to older mothers. It is highest for babies born to teenage mothers. The more babies a teen mother has, the greater at risk they are."

2. "Wait at least one year between the birth of a child and the next pregnancy.The shorter the interval between pregnancies, the higher the SIDS rate."

3. "Breast-feed babies whenever possible. Breast milk decreases the occurrence of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections. Studies show that breast-fed babies have a lower SIDS rate than formula-fed babies do."

4. "Offer your baby a pacifier. Some studies have shown a lower rate of SIDS among babies who use pacifiers. "

5. "Keep your baby’s crib in the parents’ room until the infant is at least 6 months of age. Studies clearly show that infants are safest when their beds are close to their mothers." (elsewhere on the site it is recommended that babies sleep in their parents' room until they are a year old).

What do these things have in common? I think it is so bizarre that having your kids too close together can increase the risk of SIDS. The pacifier thing is weird, too. Along with these recommendations and some against using heroin and smoking (duh!), are others like putting your baby to sleep on his back (mine will no longer sleep on his back--tummy only now--no matter how many times I turn him over), and not using any blankets in the crib. I break that rule, also. S. seems to really like the weight of a light blanket on him and he overheats (another SIDS concern) very easily in the zip-on blankets.

Here's the worst thing on the website,"In a typical situation parents check on their supposedly sleeping infant to find him or her dead. " I almost cried when I read this and had to run up and check on my supposedly sleeping son to make sure that he wasn't dead. I don't think I will be less insane until S. is past his first birthday, the magic day when SIDS isn't really a concern any longer.