International Child Care Practices Study: infant sleeping environment

Background: The International Child Care Practices Study (ICCPS) has collec ted descriptive data from 21 centres in 17 countries. In this report, data are presented on the infant sleeping environment with the main focus being sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) risk factors (bedsharing and infant usi ng a pillow) and protective factors (infant sharing a room with adult) that are not yet well established in the literature. Methods: Using a standardised protocol, parents of infants were surveyed at birth by interview and at 3 months of age mainly by postal questionnaire. Centres were grouped according to geographic location. Also indicated was t he level of SIDS awareness in the community, i.e. whether any campaigns or messages to "reduce the risks of SIDS" were available at tile lime of the s urvey. Results: Birth interview data were available for 5488 individual families a nd 4656 (85%) returned questionnaires at 3 months. Rates of bedsharing vari ed considerably (2-88%) and it appeared to be more common in the samples wi th a lower awareness of SIDS, but not necessarily a high SIDS rate. Countri es with higher rates of bedsharing appeared to have a greater proportion of infants bedsharing for a longer duration (>5 h). Rates of room sharing var ied (58-100%) with some of the lowest rates noted in centres with a higher awareness of SIDS. Rates of pillow use ranged from 4% to 95%. Conclusions: It is likely that methods of bedsharing differ cross-culturall y, and although further details were sought on different bedsharing practic es, it was not possible to build up a composite picture of "typical" bedsha ring practices in these different communities. These data highlight interes ting patterns in child care in these diverse populations. Although these re sults should not be used to imply that any particular child care practice e ither increases or decreases the risk of SIDS, these findings should help t o inject caution into the process of developing SIDS prevention campaigns f or non-Western cultures. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.