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Deaths and near deaths of healthy newborn infants while bed sharing on maternity wards

Journal of Perinatology volume 34, pages 957–958 (2014)Cite this article

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I read the very useful and carefully presented research report by Thach.1 I was disappointed, however, that the author’s recommendations for preventing future deaths were limited to (1) education of mothers, and (2) more efficient monitoring of infants, either by people or by technology. As the author reminds us, both strategies have inherent weaknesses: the mother’s wakefulness is not completely protective, and in many cases nurses will be unavailable for one-on-one monitoring duties. To me the data clearly show that we should introduce an additional way to prevent suffocation, while we wait for the rollout of new monitoring technology.

The author emphasized that suffocation was the most likely cause of death among the reviewed cases, and the majority, if not all, of those deaths were preventable. Furthermore, only eight infants were ‘on the breast’ when discovered, and in half the cases a pillow or other soft bedding was present. Taken together, these observations imply that there is a significant reduction in risk to be had from eliminating overly soft pillows and mattresses in the maternity ward.

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References

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  1. Department of Public Health, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    R L Somers

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  1. R L Somers
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Correspondence to R L Somers.

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Somers, R. Deaths and near deaths of healthy newborn infants while bed sharing on maternity wards. J Perinatol 34, 957–958 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/jp.2014.149

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