Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Archives of Disease in Childhood logoLink to Archives of Disease in Childhood
. 1995 Mar;72(3):204–208. doi: 10.1136/adc.72.3.204

Correlates of prone infant sleeping position by period of birth.

A L Ponsonby 1, T Dwyer 1, S V Kasl 1, D Couper 1, J A Cochrane 1
PMCID: PMC1511074  PMID: 7741564

Abstract

Intervention to avoid the prone sleeping position during infancy has occurred in various countries after evidence that it increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). This study examined cohort data to determine if correlates of the prone position differed by period of birth, before intervention (1 May 1988 to 30 April 1991) compared with after intervention (1 May 1991 to 30 April 1992). The usual prone sleeping position was more closely associated with the following factors after intervention: teenage motherhood, low maternal education, paternal unemployment, unmarried motherhood, non-specialist antenatal care, not reading books to prepare for a baby, poor smoking hygiene, and bottle feeding. For example, the association of usual prone position with being unmarried shown by the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) was 0.54 (0.47 to 0.63) in the period before intervention and 1.92 (1.18 to 3.15) in the period after intervention. The alteration in correlates of the prone position reported here provide an example to support the theoretical concept that well known 'modifiable' risk factors for disease tend to be associated with each other in both populations and individuals. This phenomenon was not evident in the population before intervention, that is, before the prone sleeping position became a well known SIDS risk factor.

Full text

PDF
204

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Bolton D. P., Taylor B. J., Campbell A. J., Galland B. C., Cresswell C. Rebreathing expired gases from bedding: a cause of cot death? Arch Dis Child. 1993 Aug;69(2):187–190. doi: 10.1136/adc.69.2.187. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Dwyer T., Ponsonby A. L., Newman N. M., Gibbons L. E. Prospective cohort study of prone sleeping position and sudden infant death syndrome. Lancet. 1991 May 25;337(8752):1244–1247. doi: 10.1016/0140-6736(91)92917-q. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Engelberts A. C., de Jonge G. A. Choice of sleeping position for infants: possible association with cot death. Arch Dis Child. 1990 Apr;65(4):462–467. doi: 10.1136/adc.65.4.462. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Greenland S. Modeling and variable selection in epidemiologic analysis. Am J Public Health. 1989 Mar;79(3):340–349. doi: 10.2105/ajph.79.3.340. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Guntheroth W. G., Spiers P. S. Sleeping prone and the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. JAMA. 1992 May 6;267(17):2359–2362. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Lemeshow S., Hosmer D. W., Jr A review of goodness of fit statistics for use in the development of logistic regression models. Am J Epidemiol. 1982 Jan;115(1):92–106. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a113284. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Lewis J., Samuels M., Southall D. Is the decline in cot deaths due to child-health reorganisation? Lancet. 1993 Jan 2;341(8836):51–51. doi: 10.1016/0140-6736(93)92525-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Mitchell E. A., Ford R. P., Taylor B. J., Stewart A. W., Becroft D. M., Scragg R., Barry D. M., Allen E. M., Roberts A. P., Hassall I. B. Further evidence supporting a causal relationship between prone sleeping position and SIDS. J Paediatr Child Health. 1992;28 (Suppl 1):S9–12. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1754.1992.tb02732.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Ponsonby A. L., Dwyer T., Gibbons L. E., Cochrane J. A., Wang Y. G. Factors potentiating the risk of sudden infant death syndrome associated with the prone position. N Engl J Med. 1993 Aug 5;329(6):377–382. doi: 10.1056/NEJM199308053290601. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Ponsonby A. L., Dwyer T., Kasl S. V., Cochrane J. A., Newman N. M. An assessment of the impact of public health activities to reduce the prevalence of the prone sleeping position during infancy: the Tasmanian Cohort Study. Prev Med. 1994 May;23(3):402–408. doi: 10.1006/pmed.1994.1055. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Tuohy P. G., Counsell A. M., Geddis D. C. Sociodemographic factors associated with sleeping position and location. Arch Dis Child. 1993 Dec;69(6):664–666. doi: 10.1136/adc.69.6.664. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. d'Espaignet E. T., Dwyer T., Newman N. M., Ponsonby A. L., Candy S. G. The development of a model for predicting infants at high risk of sudden infant death syndrome in Tasmania. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 1990 Oct;4(4):422–435. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3016.1990.tb00670.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Archives of Disease in Childhood are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES