It all started in 1989 when someone claimed that he had figure out the cause of SIDS. It was chemicals (fire retardants) used in crib mattresses, interacting with a fungus that released toxic gases. I’m not linking the sites that claim this, because I have no wish to perpetuate the rumor– if you want to find out more, Dr. Google will be your willing ally for your adventures. You’ll see that there are several sites that all reference each other, rather than any substantial published studies; many sell special mattress wrappings to keep the Evil Gasses at bay. You’ll see claims that no baby ever dies on a specially-wrapped mattress, and that the government and doctors has been hiding these statistics (because, presumably, we’re all in the pocket of “big mattress” and “fire fighters”.) You’ll also see claims, on those same sites, that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS and other, shall we say, “colorful” health beliefs. Seriously, if you do end up Googling this, you’ll want to put on a fresh tin foil hat first.
The facts of the matter are summed up here, in a document from First Candle. They’re a non-profit dedicated to fighting SIDS and providing support for grieving families. They point out some simple facts: the rate of SIDS dropped after “The Chemicals” were added to mattresses to prevent fires; the fungus claimed to be associated with SIDS is almost never actually present in any mattresses; wrapping mattresses has never been shown to prevent SIDS, babies have in fact died on wrapped mattresses; and SIDS occurs at a similar rate in countries that do and don’t use flame-retardant chemicals in mattresses. There’s more to it, including summaries of multiple, well-funded investigations into the theory, but you get the point: there’s just no evidence, whatsoever, that toxic gasses from unwrapped mattresses are killing babies. Those that support the theory are not telling the truth. There’s been good progress fighting SIDS in the 25 years since the “offgassing hypothesis” appeared – we now understand a lot of ways families can protect their children, and SIDS rates have fallen dramatically.
This idea wasn’t an unreasonable hypothesis when it was proposed, but studies haven’t backed it up. It’s time for the Toxic Gas idea to stay buried and forgotten. Explore posts in the same categories: Medical problems, Pediatric Insider information This entry was posted on August 11, 2016 at 10:08 am and is filed under Medical problems, Pediatric Insider information. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Tags: SIDS You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is one of the leading causes of death among infants between the ages of 1 month to 1 year old. At IntelliBED, we want to do all we can to create safe, toxin-free mattresses that help parents reduce the risk of and prevent SIDS in their home. Research suggests that there is a link between the toxic materials used in making infant mattresses and SIDS – and there are real-life studies that have been done that support this hypothesis.
Specifically, Dr. T. James Sprott in New Zealand has been promoting a campaign where parents wrap their baby’s mattress with a specific wrap that prevents any toxic materials from being breathed in or touched by their baby. Since the campaign started in December of 1993 there have been ZERO SIDS deaths among babies who have slept on such wrapped mattresses, with over 200,000 babies sleeping on such a mattress. This result is especially significant given the fact that New Zealand used to be a country with one of the highest SIDS rates in the world. Below is an infographic that walks you through this research and provides you with recommendations on what you can do to prevent SIDS. If you have any follow up questions on SIDS or would like to talk with us about why our intelliBEDmini crib mattress is the best mattress for preventing SIDS, please feel free to give us a call.Mitchell EA1, Thompson JM, Ford RP, Taylor BJ.Author information1Department of Paediatrics, University of Auckland, New Zealand.AbstractWe carried out a nationwide case-control study, comparing 393 case patients with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) with 1592 control subjects, in order to examine sheepskin bedding as a risk factor.
Sheepskin use was similar for case patients and control subjects (both, 42%; adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 1.28; 95% CI = 0.92, 1.79). Sheepskin use among the control subjects was associated with socioeconomic advantage. The relative risk for SIDS with sheepskin use was significantly increased in the infants placed prone to sleep (adjusted OR = 1.70; 95% CI = 1.08, 2.67), but not for infants placed in the supine or lateral position (adjusted OR = 0.82; 95% CI = 0.45, 1.48). An interaction between sheepskin use and bed sharing was also found. Sheepskin use was associated with a decreased risk of SIDS among infants sharing beds (adjusted OR = 0.61; 95% CI = 0.38, 0.99), but an increased risk among infants not bed sharing (adjusted OR = 2.25; 95% CI = 1.32, 3.86). We conclude that if an infant needs to be placed prone to sleep for medical reasons, a sheepskin should not be used as underbedding. However, for infants placed supine to sleep, sheepskins are not associated with an increased risk of SIDS.