In yet another study that seems to point to carbon dioxide as a big culprit in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, running a fan may reduce the risk by improving ventilation.

In the October issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, researchers in California found that the risk of SIDS for infants in rooms with a fan was 72% lower than those who slept in rooms without a fan. Opening a window also reduced the risk by 36%.

The ventilation may help by preventing carbon dioxide from building up around a baby’s nose and mouth so they are less likely to breathe in exhaled air, the researchers speculated.

The article stresses this isn’t enough evidence to prove anything, and that putting babies to sleep on their back is still the best known prevention of SIDS.

Read more here.

And for goodness sake, stop using crib bumper pads for exactly the same reason. I don’t get how Health Canada can have a “policy statement” that “does not recommend the use of bumper pads in cribs because they pose an entanglement, entrapment, strangulation, and suffocation hazard to infants” yet still allows them to be manufactured and sold to parents.

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