Dear HIFA and CHIFA colleagues,
In my office I have a copy of Dr Spock's Baby and Child Care, published in 1956.
He writes: ‘There are two disadvantages to a baby’s sleeping on his back. If he vomits he’s more likely to choke on the vomitus. Also he tends to keep his head turned towards the same side . . . this may flatten the side of the head . . . I think it is preferable to accustom a baby to sleeping on his stomach from the start.’
As described on the website TestingTreatments:
'Placing babies to sleep on their front (prone) became standard practice in hospitals and was dutifully followed at home by millions of parents. But we now know that this practice – which was never rigorously evaluated – led to tens of thousands of avoidable cot deaths.'
https://en.testingtreatments.org/book/2-hoped-for-effects-that-dont-mate...
Dr Spock cannot take all the blame. His advice was based on logic. Clear evidence of the harmful effects of the prone sleeping position emerged in the 1980s. Thereafter doctors and the media advised parents to put baby on their backs and the numbers of cot deaths began to fall dramatically.
So I was shocked to learn that today some self-described 'infant sleep experts' continue to advise the prone position, ignoring the clear evidence.
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Dangerous baby-sleep advice given to parents by self-described experts, secret filming reveals
Some self-described infant sleep experts are giving advice that could put babies at risk of serious harm and even death, medical professionals have told a BBC investigation...
NHS paediatrician Lillie Parker told us: "This is fundamentally the most dangerous thing she has said [to lie baby prone]. We're not talking about mild harm here… We're talking about a baby having cot death."
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org