SIDS babies stop breathing and that is bad. It is still not clear why it happens. Recently, a study found that a fan in the room decreased SIDS (link). Conceivably the fan might move theoretical pools of CO2 away from the baby's face, although the idea that a pool of CO2 would make breathing cease does not make sense to me.
I suspect the fan sloppily emulates a sleeping mom breathing on the baby's face. Both of my babies have had a reflex when very young which I have not found described on the web in lists of infant reflexes. On holding the awake or asleep baby, and puffing a gentle puff of my garlic and coffee breath in the face (done with love, of course), the baby will then take an unusually deep breath. It does not seem voluntary. This can happen over and over. It is gone by 2-3 months.
Perhaps my children are mutants, or crave garlic and coffee breath. I would love to check the prevalence of this reflex with a gaggle of unrelated babies but find none available at the moment. I encourage those of you with tiny infants handy to check for yourselves. If there is such a reflex, it might serve to sub in for an immature respiratory drive.
The SIDS prevention solution for babies sleeping alone is not a fan, but rather a crib-mounted puffer desgined to puff perioidcally on the baby's face. Perhaps one of those vortex shooters, scaled down to baby size. It would serve as an external timer, the way sleeping mom breath is supposed to. There could be a compartment on the puffer to add garlic and coffee, for added realism.-- bungston, Dec 16 2008 Fan cuts SIDS risk http://health.usnew...ids-risk-by-72.html [bungston, Dec 16 2008] SIDS risks http://sids-network...xperts/bedshare.htmDon't put them on their tummies. [nomocrow, Dec 17 2008] Good eye. I imagine that most people wouldn't have thought twice about it.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 16 2008 An interesting hypothesis and worthy of further study.
However, I think that it would be unethical to market this as a product before finding any scientific evidence of its effectiveness. It would prey on parents' insecurities about doing everything possible to prevent SIDS.-- xaviergisz, Dec 17 2008 No marketing - this one was too ethical for BUNGCO. But the initial test should be easy: the infants should take a breath each time the puff hits their face. Maybe time it for every 30 seconds?-- bungston, Dec 17 2008 You are a couple of months late for me to test your idea on my baby.
Bun for everything that helps babies. Some good theorising there.
If your children are mutants anyway, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.-- zeno, Dec 17 2008 /mutants/
Well Zeno, the next time you encounter a strange meteorite leaking mauve goo, we will see if you are Mr Self Control or if like any normal human, you cannot resist gobbling down handful after handful of the stuff.-- bungston, Dec 17 2008 <sigh>-- nineteenthly, Dec 17 2008 //67 of 90 SIDS deaths//
Sounds a bit high. Among that set of people that get drunk and put their kids in inappropriate beds, the risk may be increased, but I don't think it's anything close to 75% for the general population. It would be tragic if this were the case.
There are a lot of maybes; maybe SIDS in Asian countries is underreported, maybe they breastfeed more, which encourages the mothers to put the kids on their backs, maybe the pacing of CO2 as the mother breathes triggers a pacing response in the baby.
The fact is, no one knows, but there is are some general rules to be gleaned:
Don't co-sleep if you are fat (Maybe asian people have a lower incidence because they are smaller?).
Don't co-sleep if you do drugs or drink before bed.
Make sure all bedding is tight and approved by the government for babies.
Don't put the baby on its stomach ever, ever.
I wonder if there is a difference with oscillating vs. stationary fans.
I wonder if babies actually pace their breathing to the oscillating fan.
Time to do some experiments on some babies ...-- nomocrow, Dec 17 2008 //67 of 90 SIDS deaths//
Time to do some experiments on some babies ...-- nomocrow, Dec 17 2008 //Time to do some experiments on some babies ...// [marked-for-tagline].
The inhalation reflex can be triggered by either a excess of CO2 or a derth of oxygen, or both. Breathing air, at babies' intake valves, with higer CO2 levels should trigger the inhalation reflex. Reflexes are intrinsic, and measured on the apgar.
There is very little to support low apgar scores with SIDS, there is very little to support "suffocation" with SIDS, unless you include a >50kg adult on top of an infants as Sudden or Syndrome (it is surely Infant Death). The prevailing hypothesis, seems to be a lack of inhalation reflex, whether by environment or other.-- 4whom, Dec 17 2008 4whom: yes.-- bungston, Dec 17 2008 [Bungston] I never sucked goo and yes when it comes to that I am most certainly mister self control. Still those kids of mine are weirder than me and my wife put together and that's saying something. Reincarnation? Alien envolvement? God's plan? Rosemary's baby? I'm beyond caring. I love them evil or not.-- zeno, Dec 21 2008 Don't put them on their tummies, my ass. In the Netherkands they now say don't put them on their tummies. Five years ago it was all the rage. Ten years ago they said not to, fifteen years ago it was all the rage. Five years from now it's all tummies again. I just do what they say and hope for the best.-- zeno, Dec 21 2008 Surely there is a way to roll them over and over, like a hot dog in a 7-11?
But overall I'd say humanity has babies licked.-- mylodon, Dec 21 2008 /babies licked/ no. Historically, baby production was very lossy both of babies and mothers. For compensation, there is a lot of ability to overproduce . This lossiness is less tolerable these days because we have become intolerant of the natural. Probably it all started with shoes and someone who figured out that her feet did not need to hurt all the time when she walked.-- bungston, Dec 22 2008 The link between "SIDS" and overlying has been fairly well disproven by Helen Ball and co-workers at Durham. In fact, assuming you have not taken drugs/alcohol, do not smoke and do not have a sleep disorder, co-sleeping (bedsharing) is now thought to have a positive effect in preventing SIDS.
This may not be a primary link - it might reflect the fact that breastfeeding typically continues longer in mother- baby dyads that bedshare and breastfeeding definitely helps prevent cot death. However, it might be a direct correlation and reflect both aural and CO2 outbreath stimulation. It's still being researched and bedsharing is encouraged by many organisations such as UNICEF.
Many of the SIDS guidelines which talk of a link between SIDS and bedsharing quote some research done in New Zealand which has since been shown to be flawed as they didn't take into account parental alcohol intake or smoking, two known SIDS risk factors (smoking is a risk factor whether you bedshare or not).
So to comment on the original idea - yes, it has much merit for those who can't bedshare or don't want to for whatever reason.-- hazel, Dec 23 2008 random, halfbakery