Did you put your babies to sleep on tummy or back? POLL

amother

↑ Hotpink ↓

Today at 11:28 am

amother Crocus wrote:

1) Their sleep is fragmented enough already. Don't make it worse.

2) Who says I was talking about crawling? There's a ton of other things babies are supposed to be learning at that point in time (especially in sleep area which I can imagine sleep would impact the most)

3) Most SIDS babies that were found on their stomachs weren't generally put to sleep on their stomachs. Look through the data carefully. Many were actually prone on a sofa, not their crib. Not likely that planning for sleeping on their back would even save 1/3 of them since that was the normal plan for these babies.

All of this is even ignoring the rise in PPD that happened at the same time as back to sleep campaign. Mothers who aren't sleeping get depressed at far higher rates. This even impacts maternal mortality. Do their lives not matter? I'm not saying every mother of a baby sleeping on the back gets depressed but the rates of babies dying from prone position is actually way lower than the maternal suicide rate.

The major developmental milestones between 1-6 months are largely gross motor. Therefore, delays during this period, if any, are going to be mostly gross motor.

Yes, we know prone on a soft surface is the most dangerous option. But if no parent ever put their child down in prone, prone on a sofa vs prone in a cot vs probe on parents bed would be a totally moot point. You wouldn’t need those distinctions. The most recent data for the US is 1529 deaths by SIDS in 2022. If even 1% of those were able to be saved that would still be 153 kids per year. 153 kids that get to grow up. That’s a big deal kind of number.

PPD rates are not a direct correlation to supine sleep and to insulate that is entirely without merit. A number of confounding factors over that same time period are more closely associated with increased PPD - advanced age, decrease in positive spousal relationships, decrease in extended family/community support. And your claim of maternal suicide being more common than SIDS is so demonstrably false it should be embarrassing. SIDS occurs at a rate of around 1/1,000 live births while maternal suicide occurs at somewhere between 1.6 and 4.5 out of every 100,000. That would be 0.016/1000 to 0.046/1000.

↑ giftedmom

Today at 11:42 am

amother Hotpink wrote:

Here are 9 that I found in the last 20 minutes.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8229475/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12671147/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8627432/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30605404/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29177808/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8501562/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11228267/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16818554/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12173990/

Besides all of these being from the same website, these are so weak.
ALL of these have co-factors. Soft bedding, face down position, high temperature in the room, low birthweight are just a few. And even with those factors it’s only rebreathing that was increased. They didn’t prove a single case of SIDS directly related to those. Lots of speculation. Not a shred of evidence.

keym

Today at 11:49 am

I put my babies on their backs because I was too nervous.

But I'm not sure it was the right thing.

It's a balance. And a mother who gets no sleep, no support, dealing with colicky babies and gets PPD can also be very harmful to their child.
Sleep deprivation can hurt a baby. Lack of bonding.

And the list of rules are ever growing so I don't know if we can say definitively that the back is the issue.
30 years ago it was back.
Then breastfeeding.
Then room sharing.
Then low temperature
No smoking, drinking
Pacifier
No bumpers
No blankets

At a certain point you wonder.
Because it starts to seem that the goal is simply no consecutive sleep so take away anything that might allow the baby to sleep at all

I know about the risks. And I felt I couldn't live with the guilt so I chose back to sleep.

But now I'm living with other side effects - trauma to me, trauma to the kids, maybe attachment stuff and the guilt from that.

ittsamother ↓

Today at 11:57 am

amother Hotpink wrote:

Yes, we know prone on a soft surface is the most dangerous option. But if no parent ever put their child down in prone, prone on a sofa vs prone in a cot vs probe on parents bed would be a totally moot point. You wouldn’t need those distinctions.

This point seems very unreasonable to me. You know that babies die in a supine position sometimes when placed in a swing in an unsafe manner, such as when they are not buckled, or have other blankets or dolls in there with them, or were left very long unattended. Should we say that "No parent should place their child supine in a swing, safely or unsafely"? And if no parent would ever put their child down in a swing at all, it would be a totally moot point whether they did it safely or with extra blankets, we wouldn't need those distinctions.

The distinctions are precisely what matter. If it turns out that placing your child prone on a firm mattress with no extra things in the crib is basically as safe as putting them supine in that same crib, then why would we deny all these babies from the more comfortable sleeping position because some other babies died from being placed prone on the sofa??

amother

Arcticblue

Today at 12:04 pm

I read Emily Oster's book Cribsheet which delineates all the SIDS risks.
Based on the numbers and real data, I will put a baby to sleep on their belly if they will not sleep on their backs. Then I remind myself that in this specific scenario, it is the level of hishtadlus I can handle and Hashem is ultimately in charge of my baby and their health. Being completely sleep deprived, not managing my life, and making myself vulnerable to PMADS seems even less responsible-to what I would consider over hishtadlus>
(obviously if the risk was really significant I would not consider it)
I try to push off as long as possible- so 4-6 weeks and not right away, and then relax at the 4 month mark when the risk of SIDS plummets.
In general

amother

↑ Crocus

Today at 12:05 pm

amother Hotpink wrote:

PPD rates are not a direct correlation to supine sleep and to insulate that is entirely without merit. A number of confounding factors over that same time period are more closely associated with increased PPD - advanced age, decrease in positive spousal relationships, decrease in extended family/community support. And your claim of maternal suicide being more common than SIDS is so demonstrably false it should be embarrassing. SIDS occurs at a rate of around 1/1,000 live births while maternal suicide occurs at somewhere between 1.6 and 4.5 out of every 100,000. That would be 0.016/1000 to 0.046/1000.

It sounds like you're not totally familiar with the data. On whose authority do you claim that there's no merit? Deaths that have PPD as a factor are very often not attributed to the PPD. In addition PPD without suicide has been skyrocketing. It impacts huge percentages of women. Death isn't the only thing that goes wrong in life. In addition, lack of sleep has been noted as a major factor in many studies.

amother

Silver

Today at 12:11 pm

amother OP wrote:

For those that put to sleep on their tummy, do you just disregard what the medical world advises? Or have you done your own research?

I’m really considering putting my baby to sleep on tummy right away… I don’t want to deal with the endless stress of trying to get baby to sleep for hours on their back only to wake up 7 minutes later, which is my previous experience.

Yea I disregard medical advice. I only do tummy. The babies get into a deep sleep that way and they gain core muscle quicker, less reflux, no flat head. I had one baby who hated his tummy so mostly slept on his back and he was my latest crawler/walker and he had such bad reflux.

amother

↑ Hotpink ↓

Today at 12:48 pm

giftedmom wrote:

They’re all from the same we site because it’s a reliable clearinghouse of medical studies.

You didn’t claim that there’s no evidence prone sleeping or rebreathing contribute to SIDS. Your claim was

Quote:

There literally isn’t a shred of evidence that tummy sleep causes a lack of oxygen.

Which every one of these studies proves.

amother

↑ Hotpink ↓

Today at 12:51 pm

amother Crocus wrote:

Can you present a single study that indicates a causative relationship to supine sleep (not poor sleep, not sleep deprivation, but specifically putting baby on their back to sleep)? If you can’t, then your claim has no merit.

And that’s true that PPD happens without suicide. But your claim was maternal suicide is more prevalent than SIDS, so don’t try to backtrack now.

amother

↑ Hotpink

Today at 12:57 pm

ittsamother wrote:

The guidelines are that swing are only used when an adult caregiver is watching the baby and the baby should be removed from the swing if they fall asleep. Sleep is the difference here, and we absolutely say don't put your kid to sleep in a swing.

If it turns out that sleeping prone on a totally bare mattress poses no risks then that’s fine, but that’s not remotely what the data shows. The data indicates that prone positioning is inherently risky, regardless of the surface it happens on.

↑ ittsamother

Today at 1:02 pm

amother Hotpink wrote:

No, my point with the swing was not at all about whether a baby is sleeping in it but rather that different factors do make a difference, so one cannot make a ruling across the board.

As far as your second point, the data shows that all baby sleep is inherently risky. Babies have died from SIDS both prone and supine, the studies show that sleep apnea affects them both prone and supine, etc. The only thing the studies above showed specifically was that there is a slightly higher risk of rebreathing when prone than supine. Nowhere did they make the claim that a child in a supine position will have no risk of rebreathing. Neither did any study specifically tie SIDS to rebreathing.

happytobemom ↓

Today at 1:05 pm

Babies have been sleeping on their stomachs for thousands of years.
It's the natural way for them to sleep.
If we have kids with helmets to help their heads grow normally, that's obviously not very natural.
It develops their muscles, they're more comfortable, it may also help their emotional development.
Think of the stomach position vs. the back position - which one feels more secure?
Now it's also no blankets, no bumpers, nothing soft...
Soon they're going to want us to put our babies to sleep lying flat on their backs on an empty hard board because that's the safest!

↑ GLUE

Today at 1:39 pm

giftedmom wrote:

I did a ton of research and couldn’t find a single reliable study that made sense. Correlation is not causation that’s basic science.

I did not do to much research all I found was correlation
In 1990 4 Eroupen countries started Back to sleep and SIDS rate fell in all those countries

Before 1970 SIDS was not common in the Netherlands, people put there babies to sleep on there back. In 1970 there was a movement to put babies to sleep on there tummy. SIDS rate went up four fold. In 1987 the movement to put babies on the back started SIDS rate dropped by 40%.

In 2000 there was a study(I don't have it, I saw it a wile ago)that studied Co-sleeping societies. The ones that slept with babies on there back had a lower rate of SIDS then the societies that Co-slept with the babies on there tummy.