Unsafe Bedding Continues to Be Used in Cribs
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Photos.com/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Despite frequent warnings from health officials about the dangers of soft blankets, quilts and comforters in infant cribs, more than half of today’s parents still put their babies to bed with the materials.
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, Yale, and Boston University examined survey data from approximately 19,000 parents over some 17 years and found 54.7 percent still put their babies to bed with blankets, quilts and comforters. Experts say the use of those materials may increase the risk of sudden infant death syndrome by suffocation.
The researchers acknowledge that the percentage has dropped dramatically from 85.9 percent in 1993, but say 54.7 percent is still too high.
The researchers say moms under the age of 20 and African-American mothers were twice as likely to use the potentially harmful bedding materials. The researchers note that the data was obtained via self-reporting participants, and as a result the information on the prevalence of using harmful bedding may be over- or underestimated.
The study is published in the latest issue of Pediatrics.
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