Saturday, November 10, 2012

Child Development and Public Health


Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the health topic I choose to discuss this week.  This is a very important topic to me because I had a client have her 2 week old baby girl to die from SIDS.  When I worked with first time teen mothers this is one of the subjects I discussed often.  I wanted the moms to know ways in which to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. 

When researching SIDS I found an article that I wanted to share.   One of the ways we share in United States to reduce the risk of SIDS is to keep baby’s sleep area close but separate from where you and others sleep. After reading this article The Natural Child Project-Co-sleeping Around the World I learned that majority of mothers and babies around the globe today, co-sleep.  In much of southern Europe, Asia, Africa and Central and South America, mothers and babies routinely share sleep.  The article goes on to state that most cultures that routinely practice co-sleeping, in any form, have very rare instances of SIDS. SIDS occurrences are among the lowest in the world in Hong Kong, where co-sleeping is extremely common.  Reading this information and knowing what I know about different cultures, I don't want  to be offenseive when telling mothers the risk of co-sleeping. Reading this article has casued me to change my approach so that I can be culturally sensitive to this subject and respect different cultrals but still discussing the risk.

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4 comments:

  1. TaWanda

    This is a hot topic and one I chose also. As a mother of an 8 month old I am constantly checking her at night to make sure all is well. So many people do not realize the seriousness of SIDS and I hoping that posts like yours and mine will make the more aware. Thank you for sharing your article because it was very informative.

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  2. I have read in the past about the benefits of co-sleeping. I would think that harming an infant while sharing a bed would be more common, not less. Your article was interesting. Our American views would benefit from this way of thinking. I feel our culture makes parenting and child rearing too difficult. We are concerned with being too perfect, which no one can be anyway. Thank you for your research.

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  3. I found your blog post very interesting. Reading your reference article, I was surprised to learn that in Japan as maternal smoking decreased and breastfeeding increased, the SIDS rate decreased to almost nothing. It sounds like here in the United States we need to re-examine our beliefs about SIDS and the advice we're giving. Thank you for sharing this!!

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  4. Hi Tawanda,
    What a sad story. I am glad you became the resource that family needed and I am so excited, you get updates on how everyone is doing!

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