Although 91.1 percent of parents said they were aware of infant safe sleep practices, 84 percent said they were unable to put their babies in a separate bed, the Jing Chuan Child Safety Foundation said in its Infants’ Sleeping Conditions Safety Index Report released yesterday.
According the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s 2022-2023 Cause of Death for Children under the Age of Six Retrospective Analysis Report, 43 of 84 infant deaths during sleep were “highly preventable,” foundation executive officer Hsu Ya-jen (許雅荏) said, adding that it showed there was still room for improvement in infant sleep safety.
The poll found that many parents found it difficult to let infants sleep in a separate bed due to convenience and ease of access factors, Hsu said.
Photo courtesy of the Jing Chuan Child Safety Foundation
About 80 percent of parents said they seldom received, or were almost entirely ignorant of, information regarding sleep safety for infants, and the same number of respondents said they did not know infants should sleep on their backs nor that it is better to have a hard mattress, the poll found.
Mattress hardness was the least covered topic in infant sleep safety, with only 57.56 percent of polled parents saying they were aware of it, the survey found.
MacKay Children’s Hospital pediatrician Peng Chun-chih (彭純芝) cited a few myths that increase the risk of infants suffocating while sleeping, such as allowing infants to lay on their bellies make it easier to sleep, side sleeping helps prevent vomiting and using “head shaping” pillows.
The risk of infants suffocating increases by two to three times when sleeping on the same bed with parents or siblings, Peng added.
Hsu said the foundation is stepping up efforts to conduct family visits — prioritizing high-risk families — and making infant products safer.
Parents should not only know, but also implement sleep safety concepts such as that infants should not sleep on their bellies, use pillows, sleep in soft mattresses, suffer from heat, nor sleep on the same bed as other people, Hsu added.
Sleeping mattresses and other sleep products should be subject to inspection standards, and the government should have systems in place to issue warnings to daycare centers, family childcare services and other child-friendly locations, Hsu said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Yueh-chin (林月琴) said the government should establish systems to warn parents about high-risk infant products and promptly shelve them.
The poll, conducted between February and March, surveyed parents of children younger than one in all six special municipalities, and yielded 406 valid samples.
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