Most sudden infant deaths involved unsafe sleep habits, study finds

More than three-quarters of sudden infant deaths involved multiple unsafe sleep practices, including co-sleeping, a recent analysis suggests.

A study published in the journal Pediatrics looked at 7,595 sudden infant death cases in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention registry between 2011 and 2020. The majority of deaths occurred in babies less than 3 months old.

The statistics revealed that 59.5 percent of the infants who died suddenly were sharing a sleep surface at the time of death, and 75.9 percent were in an adult bed when they died. Though some demographic factors such as sex and length of gestation were not clinically significant, the researchers found that the babies sharing a sleep surface were more likely to be Black and publicly insured than those who didn't share sleep surfaces. Soft bedding was common among all the infants who died, and 76 percent of the cases involved multiple unsafe practices.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/03/31/sudden-infant-death-sleeping-risks/