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international studies reporting that
SIDS risk was lower among infants put
to bed with a pacifier and reinforced
earlier findings that sleeping on a sofa
also increases infants’ risk of SIDS.
The researchers studied all infants
from the ages of birth to one year who
had died of SIDS in Chicago, IL,
between November 1993 and April
1996. There were 260 SIDS deaths dur-
ing that time.
The SIDS rate for African American
babies is more than twice that for
white infants, according to experts.
The research is part of the Chicago
Infant Mortality Study, designed to
identify risk factors for SIDS that place
African American infants at roughly
double the SIDS risk of Caucasians.
Earlier findings of the study appear at
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/new/releases/
infant_sids.cfm.
The researchers compared informa-
tion about each SIDS case to informa-
tion about a control infant—a living
infant of comparable age, who was
from the same racial and/or ethnic
group and who had a similar birth
weight. All of the SIDS deaths were
evaluated by the Cook County Medical
Examiner’s Office; autopsies had been
conducted to rule out other causes of
death. Death scene investigators con-
ducted interviews about circumstances
surrounding the deaths. The
researchers used the NICHD defini-
tion of SIDS: “the sudden death of an
infant under one year of age, which
remains unexplained after a thorough
case investigation, including perform-
ance of a complete autopsy, examina-
tion of the death scene, and review of
the clinical history.”
Infants who died of SIDS were 5.4
times more likely to have shared a bed
with other children than were the con-
trol infants. Sleeping with the mother
alone or mother and father was associ-
ated with an increased risk of SIDS,
but this finding was not statistically
significant. The study concluded “the
risk was primarily associated with bed
212 AWHONN Lifelines Volume 7 Issue 3
Born Too Soon,Too SmallEach week in the U.S.:
• 8,985 babies are born pre-term
• 1,491 babies are born very pre-term
• 5,904 babies are born low birth weight
• 1,115 babies are born very low birth weight
• In 2000, 467,201 babies were born pre-term, representing 12 percent of
the 4,058,814 births in the U.S.
• Between 1990 and 2000, the rate of infants born pre-term in the U.S.
increased more than 9 percent
• The rate of pre-term birth in the U.S. is highest for African Americans
(17.4 percent), followed by Native Americans (12.6 percent), Whites
(10.6 percent) and Asians (10.2 percent)
• The rate of pre-term birth in the U.S. among Hispanics is 11.4 percent.
People who are Hispanic may be of any race
• In the U.S., infants born to mothers less than age 20 or over 35 years are
more likely to be pre-term than infants born to mothers aged 20 to 35
• Some risk factors for pre-term birth and low birth weight include previ-
ous pre-term and/or low–birth-weight birth, multiple birth, smoking,
unplanned pregnancy, infections and poor nutrition
Prematurity Then & Now
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
Pre-term Low Birth Weight
1990
2000
Healthy People 2010 Goal
Sources: U.S. Center for Health Statistics, March of Dimes' Prematurity Campaign