New Study suggests fans reduce risk of SIDS

Simply turning on a fan in a sleeping baby's room can reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome by 72 percent, a study says.

The study punctuates other findings that SIDS can be greatly reduced by changing a sleeping baby's environment, said the study's author, De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente Research in Oakland, Calif. Li noted that a fan is an especially great benefit when there are other risk factors present such as an overheated room and soft bedding.

Li studied the cases of 185 babies who died from SIDS in California during a four-year period, and, through interviews with the mothers, compared their environmental circumstances to those of babies who did not die.

Li's study also found that simply having open windows reduces SIDS risk by 36 percent, even without a fan.

Li said it's unwise to depend on just one remedy, however.

Instead, do all the right things:

* Lay the infant on his or her back and make sure the room isn't overheated.

* Don't use soft bedding.

* Use a fan.

* Don't have the infant sleep with siblings or anyone else, except perhaps the parents.

SIDS is the leading cause of death among children from 1 to 12 months old, and the third leading cause of overall infant mortality in the U.S.

excerpted from Rocky Mountain News - October 7, 2008