"Physicians can greatly help to increase back sleeping by
advising parents and caregivers to place infants to sleep on
their backs," said Dr. Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
(NICHD), which funded the study. The analysis also found that
the number of infants being put to sleep on their stomachs
continues to drop. But a significant portion of the population
is still placing infants to sleep on their stomachs-despite
having been told that back sleeping reduces the risk of SIDS.
Marian Willinger, Ph.D., of NICHD's Pregnancy and Perinatology
Branch, led the research team that reported the findings, which
appear in the April 26 Journal of the American Medical
Association. Other members of the research team are from the
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
(NIDCD), the Harvard School of Medicine, and the Boston
University School of Medicine. SIDS strikes nearly 3,000 babies
each year. SIDS is the sudden, unexplained death of