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Research proves infant mattresses can cause sudden infant death. (Parenting).


Cot death cot death
n. Chiefly British
Sudden infant death syndrome.


cot death
Noun

the unexplained sudden death of a baby while asleep

Noun 1.
 expert Dr Jim Sprott has welcomed new research that confirms that infant mattresses cause cot death. A four-and-a-half year study by the Scottish Cot Death Trust (1) published in the British Medical Journal The British Medical Journal, or BMJ, is one of the most popular and widely-read peer-reviewed general medical journals in the world.[2] It is published by the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd (owned by the British Medical Association), whose other  (November 2002) has shown that the re-use of infant mattresses triples the risk of cot death. In the U.S., cot death is called sudden infant death syndrome sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) or crib death, sudden, unexpected, and unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant under one year of age (usually between two weeks and eight months old).  (SIDS SIDS sudden infant death syndrome.

SIDS
abbr.
sudden infant death syndrome


SIDS,
n See syndrome, sudden infant death.
) or crib death crib death
n.
See sudden infant death syndrome.


crib death Sudden infant death syndrome, see SIDS
.

"This research finding cannot be ignored," said Dr. Sprott. "It is crucial to cot death prevention."

From late 1994 Dr. Sprott has publicized mattress-wrapping for cot death prevention nationwide in New Zealand New Zealand (zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. , and since that time a very large number of babies have slept on wrapped mattresses. There has been no reported cot death among those babies. The New Zealand cot death rate has fallen by 48 percent (2), and the European/Pakeha rate by about 75 percent.

Earlier this year, a German doctor published the results of the New Zealand mattress-wrapping campaign (3) in an overseas' journal, including statistical analysis carried out in conjunction with the University of Munich. The statistics showed that the proof of the validity of mattress-wrapping for cot death prevention was one billion billion times (4) the level of proof generally accepted by the medical community as proving a scientific proposition.

"The 100 percent success of mattress-wrapping has been proved in New Zealand over a period of nearly eight years," said Dr Sprott. "Now Scottish researchers have confirmed that mattresses cause cot death, and a German doctor has demonstrated that the proof of mattress-wrapping is vastly greater than the accepted medical standard of proof."

"The Ministry of Health, Cot Death Association ... have been dithering Simulating more colors and shades in a palette. In a monochrome system that displays or prints only black and white, shades of grays can be simulated by creating varying patterns of black dots. This is how halftones are created in a monochrome printer.  around over mattress-wrapping for nearly eight years," said Dr. Sprott. "During that time around 550 New Zealand babies have died needlessly of cot death. The Ministry, Cot Death Association ... have been informed time and again about the efficacy of mattress-wrapping in preventing cot death--yet they have refused to act on this life-saving information. I hold them responsible for those 550 deaths."

(1.) Tappin, et al. 2002. Used infant mattresses and sudden infant death syndrome in Scotland: Case-control study case-control study,
n an investigation employing an epidemiologic approach in which previously existing incidents of a medical condition are used in lieu of gathering new information from a randomized population.
. British Medical Journal 325: 1007.

(2.) From 2.1 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1994 to 1.1/1000 in 2000 (provisional).

(3.) Kapuste, H. 2002. Giftige Gase im Kinderbett ("Toxic Gases in Infants' Beds"), Zeitschrift fuer Umweltmedizin No. 44; January-April 18-20.

(4.) p < 1.9 x 10 (exp. minus 22). (The generally accepted figure for medical proof is p < 1.0 x 10 (exp. minus 3)).
COPYRIGHT 2003 Association of Labor Assistants & Childbirth Educators
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2003, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Publication:Special Delivery
Geographic Code:8NEWZ
Date:Mar 22, 2003
Words:423
Previous Article:Debates over co-sleeping. (Parenting).
Next Article:`Twas the night of a birth. (Poetry).
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