New Zealand did a campaign (beginning in 1998) to
encourage parents to wrap their baby mattresses. If you look at this link,
there’s about 8 facts that show the history of their campaign: (http://www.babymattresscovers.com/crib_death_summary.html)
Over 190,000 babies sleep on wrapped mattresses in New Zealand. There
have been 0 deaths in of babies sleeping on a wrapped mattresses. In
other words, for over 10 years, wrapping mattresses has been 100% effective in
saving babies from SIDS.
If you research SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) you’ll
find that some experts say that breastfeeding and sleeping with your baby helps
prevent it, other experts say it increases the likelihood. In 1994, the
American Academy of Pediatric launched a campaign to encourage parents to have
babies sleep on their backs. The response to that was a dramatic drop in
SIDS deaths. But they didn’t go away. If you look at a graph
showing the drop of SIDS, you’ll see that while it dropped in response to back
sleeping, it has leveled off. Deaths from SIDS have not decreased since
2001 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Back_to_sleep_plot.png).
There are still approximately 2000 babies that die in the
US every year due to SIDS. It is the leading cause of death for
babies under one year and typically occurs between 2 and 4 months of age.
So babies sleeping on their back helps, but there must be some other reason. I
believe that it is the foam and fire retardant chemicals that slowly off gas and
break down coming from the mattress. Older babies usually are fine
because their lungs are more developed.
There is something we do which is not mainstream but totally easy, cheap and potentially life-saving. It can be done in 20 minutes and never have to be done again and will provide protection for your sweet babies for the entire time they sleep on their baby mattresses.
- Baby mattresses (my post)
- DIY Mattress Wrapping (my post)
- Prevent SIDS
- Divergent View (another passionate mom convinced we can pretty much eliminate SIDS.
- Cot (Brit way of saying mattress) life 2000 (the deepest research available)
Love, Carra
Posts
2 comments:
Could I wrap the crib mattress in the plastic from the hardware store like you did your bigger mattresses or do I need to buy a special crib mattress cover? The specific covers are about $40 each (from bebesafe) and I have a cradle, 2 pack and plays, and 2 crib mattresses to wrap. Yay twins, twice as much stuff! What do I need to look for when purchasing the plastic?
Emily,
You just need a roll of polyethylene plastic sheeting (about $60 at Lowes) that is at least 5 mil. Wrap the mattress like a present and use packing tape to seal the corners. Cut a few holes in the bottom to let it "breathe" and you are set. I wrapped our co-sleeper mattress, pack n play, crib etc. Now even at almost 8 & 5 (can you believe it?) Gracie and Faith still sleep on wrapped mattresses. BTW Your babies are gorgeous!
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