Of course parents only want what’s best for their babies, and so they adapt certain methods and use certain products in an effort to make their babies’ lives easier and more comfortable.
Sadly, some of these techniques aren’t really the best for children, especially when used in the wrong way.
Nursing pillows are an example.
Such nursing pillows should never be used for sleeping! | Image source: Boppy
Because of the support it gives, a nursing pillow a useful item to help infants have a comfortable nursing experience. However, that’s about the extent of its usefulness.
When used for sleeping, it can be deadly.
In Pennsylvania, three infants have recently died because their parents used the pillow to prop their children up while sleeping. Or at least that’s what coroner Graham Hetrick believes.
“If a baby is propped up to sleep using one of these pillows, the baby could slide down, causing the neck to bend in a way that would block the airway,” says a Popsugar article.
According to the article, all three infants are believed to have slid down the pillows. Too young to pull themselves up, their airways were blocked which then cut off their oxygen until they died of suffocation.
Boppy, a company popular for its nursing pillows, isn’t taking any chances. In fact, in their website, they have a section dedicated to educating parents with the proper use of nursing pillows to prevent such incidents from happening.
What is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome?
Image source: iStock
Sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS is the sudden unexplained death of a child less than one year of age. SIDS usually occurs during sleep, typically between the hours of 00:00 and 09:00. There is usually no evidence of a struggle and no noise produced.
No one knows for sure what causes SIDS. What we do know, however, is that SIDS victims stop breathing and lack the ability to alert themselves to start breathing again.
- Although the exact cause of SIDS is unknown, certain risk factors have been identified:
- SIDS is most prevalent in babies between the ages of two and four months, but that there are more than a few cases each year in babies up to one year of age
- Sex may be a factor as 3 out of 5 victims are boys
- Babies born with underlying vulnerabilities and abnormalities (like brain and heart abnormalities and respiratory infections)
- Babies exposed to certain stressors (such as sleeping tummy-down or on too soft bedding)
- Babies born prematurely or at a very low birth weight
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