
SIDS Is An Overused Term For Completely Preventable Accidents
The overuse of the term SIDS when talking about infant safety leads to a lot of anxiety with first time parents. SIDS itself is a fairly rare phenomena. In these cases, doctors can’t really explain why a baby tragically passes on. But for some reason, the language used around SIDS discusses things such as blankets, pillows, and other suffocation hazards being the cause. According to The American SIDS Institute, SIDS is an unexplained infant death resulting from an unknown medical abnormality or vulnerability. This is usually classified as a natural death. Accidental suffocation, a death resulting from full or partial airway obstruction causing death from oxygen deprivation and increased carbon dioxide, is classified as accidental. Many theories suggest that the medical vulnerability is heightened when allowing unsafe sleep habits. So there is potential that these things could increase the risk of SIDS. But the best rule of thumb is to follow safe sleep guidelines to decrease the risk of accidental infant death.