Amid the first baths, first smiles and first steps, many baby photo albums include a classic shot of Mom or Dad asleep on the couch, their little one curled up on their chest. While heartwarming and common, the photos (often shared on social media) raise a red flag for neonatologist Sunah (Susan) Hwang, MD, MPH, PhD.
Hwang, whose premature patients are up to four times more likely than full-term babies to succumb to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), educates families and studies ways to reach more parents with the life-saving messages that pediatricians know work.
Rates of SIDS (deaths in infants under 1 with no known cause following an investigation) plummeted by over half after a 1990s research-backed safe sleep campaign that advised back sleeping in otherwise empty cribs for the nation’s babies.
“Yet the numbers have plateaued,” said Hwang, associate professor of neonatology-pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “There has been no decline in rates in over 20 years.” In 2022, there were about 3,700 sudden unidentified infant deaths (SUID) – an umbrella classification that includes SIDS and accidental suffocation or strangulation in bed – according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Now recent data have raised experts’ concerns about the prevalence of co-sleeping. After analyzing nearly 7,600 U.S. SUID cases from 2011 to 2020, the CDC found that almost 60% of those deaths occurred in shared sleep spaces. Of those, 75% were in an adult bed.
Hwang shared more about SIDS/SUID and co-sleeping in the following Q&A.