TEMPORAL DISPARITY BETWEEN REDUCTION OF COT DEATH AND REDUCTION OF PRONE SLEEPING PREVALENCE

According to several reports sudden infant death rates have decreased significantly after public campaigns aimed at reducing the incidence o f sleeping in a prone position. The Styrian population (1.2 million in habitants), who have been studied from 1984, also showed a significant drop in the incidence of cot death during 1989 (from 2 parts per thou sand to 1 parts per thousand). The year before, a campaign for the pre vention of cot death had been launched. This included the recommendati on to prevent infants from lying in a prone position during sleep. Par t of the prevention programme consisted of a detailed questionnaire fi lled in and returned by the parents. These data, on 29 970 infants fro m 1989 to 1994, provided information on the frequency of prone sleepin g in 37% of our total population and as a consequence on parental resp onse to the campaign. Calculating the data per year led to the surpris ing result that the reduction by half (from 50% to 25%) in the prevale nce of sleeping in a prone position did not occur in 1989, when the dr op in the incidence of cot death occurred, but 3 years later, in 1992. The following years saw a further decrease of prone position to 7% bu t no appreciable change in the incidence of cot death. However, during those 11 years of study about 80% of the victims were consistently fo und dead lying in a prone position. Our results show a temporal dispar ity between the reduction of sudden infant death and the decrease of p rone sleeping in a population. Although we do not deny sleeping in a p rone position as a risk factor for cot death, there cannot be a simple relationship between sleeping habits in the population and incidence of cot death. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.