The following description of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) appears on the PubMedHealth page at the US National Library of Medicine for crib death.
“Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the unexpected, sudden death of a child under age 1 in which an autopsy does not show an explainable cause of death.”
A newborn baby or young infant dies, and medical science cannot produce a conclusive explanation. Perhaps this is where common sense and reason can be applied in order to demystify SIDS with complete certainty. Truly, the causes are as obvious as night and day.
What is quite interesting is that the same PubMed web page offers the following anecdotal evidence under the heading “Causes, incidence, and risk factors”
“SIDS rates have dropped dramatically since 1992, when parents were first told to put babies to sleep on their backs or sides to reduce the likelihood of SIDS. Unfortunately, SIDS remains a significant cause of death in infants under one year old. Thousands of babies die of SIDS in the United States each year. SIDS is most likely to occur between 2 and 4 months of age. SIDS affects boys more often than girls. Most SIDS deaths occur in the winter.”
Because of the many mixed messages from the medical establishment concerning SIDS, many parents are often left in the dark when an infant dies and the cause of death is identified as SIDS. This label is not a very effective way of helping the parent(s) bring closure to what is always a very traumatic event in their lives.
What we hope to do with this session is bring clarity and focus, so that parent or parents-to-be are fully apprised of the realities in the life of a newborn or very young infant. Continue reading