October is SIDS Awareness month, and I would be remiss not to address it. The death of a child is every parent’s deepest fear. There are so many things that we can’t control in our children’s lives, but when it comes to infants, there are things that we can do to help reduce the risk of SIDS occurring. That said, I want to stress that if you have lost a child to SIDS, you are not at fault.Even with the best precautions, sometimes, we can’t control everything that happens to our children.

SIDS is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The peak ages for it to occur are between 0-9 months. We don’t know what causes it, but we do know what helps to prevent it:

Always have your baby sleep on his back. I must admit that this feels counterintuitive to me as a pediatrician. Many parents feel the same. We worry that a baby sleeping on his back might choke, but evidence suggests that it is safer for babies to sleep on their backs than on their tummies. So make sure that you do this. A few years ago, we recommended putting babies on their sides or backs but…