OBJECTIVE The goal was to evaluate, through an American Academy of Pediatrics demonstration project, the effectiveness of a curriculum and train-the-trainer model in changing child care providers' behaviors regarding safe infant sleep practices. METHODS Participating licensed child care centers and family child care homes were assigned randomly to intervention and control groups. Observers pe...

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexpected death of an apparently healthy infant younger than age 12 months whose cause of death remains unknown despite a thorough death scene investigation, a review of the clinical history, and an autopsy. Despite the huge achievement of the Back to Sleep program, SIDS remains one of the leading causes of infant death in the United States. In...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effects of behavioral interventions on the sleep/wakefulness of infants, parent and infant stress, and later child emotional/behavioral problems, and parent-child attachment. METHODS A total of 43 infants (6-16 months, 63% girls) were randomized to receive either graduated extinction (n = 14), bedtime fading (n = 15), or sleep education control (n = 14). Sleep measu...

OBJECTIVES The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends infant-parent room-sharing until age 1. We assessed the association between room-sharing and sleep outcomes. METHODS The Intervention Nurses Start Infants Growing on Healthy Trajectories study is an obesity prevention trial comparing a responsive parenting intervention with a safety control among primiparous mother-infant dyads. Mothers...

Safe infant sleep has been the focus of two decades of research. Improving supine sleep position in infants has coincided with a reduction in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Premature infants spend time prone while hospitalized to promote appropriate growth and development; however, after hospitalization, infants should be positioned supine to reduce the risk of SIDS. Research has not been...

Much interest has been raised in potential interactions between infant temperament and his/her behavioural characteristics during sleep. Although during wakefulness, temperament characteristics become more sharply focused and measurable, it has been argued that there is no true independence between these two state-specific behaviours (1,2). This may seem particularly true for the very young inf...

For nearly 3,000 years, it has been recognized that apparently healthy infants could die suddenly and unexpectedly during their sleep . Throughout most of history, it was believed that these infants somehow suffocated, implying that these babies died a respiratory death. Nearly one infant per thousand live births continues to die suddenly and unexpectedly from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS...

Recent findings in infant rats suggest that the preoptic area (POA) and/or basal forebrain (BF) contribute to developmental changes in sleep and wake organization between postnatal day 2 (P2) and P9. To examine the contributions of these forebrain areas to sleep and wakefulness, separate lesions of the POA or BF, or combined lesions (POA + BF), were performed at P9, and precollicular transectio...

Background: Between one-quarter and one-third of infants aged six months to five years have sleeping problems. Infants' night sleep patterns, in particular problematic night waking with crying, are a common concern for parents. Many factors can influence the development of infants’ night sleep patterns and sleep problems, including parental interaction. Objectives: To examine the associations b...

Objective To examine the proposition that a used infant mattress is associated with an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Design Case-control study. Setting Scotland (population 5.1 million, with about 53 000 births a year). Participants 131 infants who died of sudden infant death syndrome between 1 January 1996 and 31 May 2000 and 278 age, season, and obstetric unit matched contro...