Back to Sleep Campaign

Aims to Reduce SIDS

Local health care professionals are launching a campaign to remind parents and caregivers to put babies to sleep on their backs to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). This is a sudden, unexplained death of an infant.

The SIDS rate nationally has decreased by about 50 percent since 1992 when the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that infants be placed on their backs to sleep but not everyone has gotten the message.

“Shelby County has not followed the national decline of SIDS mortality rates of the past decade,” said Dr. Karen Lakin, a member of the Shelby County Child Fatality Review Committee and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

We have identified Shelby County as one of the highest rates of SIDS in the country for both Caucasians and African-Americans in communities that are similar to ours,” said Dr. Lakin, who has been researching the topic with Dr. Robert Wyatt and others. We have a real serious problem here with infant mortality and SIDS in particular,” Dr. Lakin said.

The local infant mortality rate has improved since the mid-1990s, but it is still far above the national rate. In 2001, Shelby County's infant mortality rate was 12.6 deaths per 1,000 live births compared to the national rate of 6.8 per 1,000, according to the most recent statistics from the Shelby County Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control.

Memphis had the highest infant mortality rate among the 60 largest U.S. cities in 1995-98 with 15.4 deaths per 1,000, according to a CDC report. Seattle had the lowest rate in that report with 4.5 infant deaths per 1,000.

“There is good evidence to show that you can reduce the SIDS rate with a back-to-sleep campaign,” said Dr. Nancy Hardt, director of the University of Tennessee Institute for Women's Health and Chair of the Infant Mortality Subcommittee of the Memphis and Shelby County Regional Health Council.

Dr. Hardt created a power-point presentation titled “This Side Up” about infant mortality and SIDS. Members of the subcommittee are sharing the information with other groups. "Right now we're doing it from service provider to service provider. Everywhere I present it I say, ‘Who else needs to hear this?"

The presentation includes a breakdown by zip code of statistics from the Shelby County Health Department in 2000.It shows that the infant mortality rate ranges from 0, in several zip codes, to 30 deaths per 1,000 in zip code 38108. Of the 28 zip codes, 21 had a higher infant mortality rate than the national average.Among the causes of preventable infant deaths, SIDS is the largest category.

Dr. Hardt said the Maternal League of Memphis has agreed to provide funding for T-shirts that say “This Side Up,” and a public media campaign is in the works. She also said she would like to find a way to recycle cribs or provide them for parents so they won't put babies to sleep in bed with them.

“It's important for pediatricians to educate the families, including caregivers and babysitters of the importance of putting babies to sleep on their backs and also other risk factors including tobacco smoke exposure, bed sharing, overheating and improper bedding,” Dr. Lakin said.

Dr. Hardt said it would be good for parents to learn safe sleeping practices while still in the hospital and for the message to be reinforced at checkups. “Pediatricians are the advocates for these infants. They have the power to change this,” she said.