Black infants are at more than double the risk of sudden infant death syndrome than whites in the United States, but teaching parents the best sleeping position for babies would help, researchers said Monday.
The overall U.S. rate of sudden infant death syndrome has dropped 40 percent to 0.67 per 100,000 children since 1992, when the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that babies be placed to sleep on their backs.
But the rate of SIDS among black infants remained more than double that of whites, researcher Rachel Moon of George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences said.
Part of the reason for the disparity was that brochures on the “Back to Sleep” campaign and other instructional methods were less effective in reaching low-income black parents, Moon wrote in a report published in the journal Pediatrics.
Fewer than one-third of the 310 parents or caregivers living in Washington, D.C., who participated in Moon’s study believed that prone sleeping increased their children’s risk of SIDS. More than 43 percent said their children either slept prone or on their sides at least part of the night.
After a 15-minute instructional session that explained the risks of prone sleeping and SIDS, 85 percent of the parents said they planned on making sure their children slept on their backs.
