`Safe sleep` advice to prevent cot deaths not always being taken
(PHYSorg.com Medicine & Health)

A substantial proportion of parents do not follow the advice they are being given to make sleep safer for their baby. This is one of the findings of the Safe Sleep Survey, whose results were published this week. Ignoring this advice, for instance with regard to a safe sleeping position or a safe bedroom environment, raises the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), also known as `cot death`: the sudden and unexpected death of a (usually sleeping) baby for which a thorough autopsy can find no explanation. In the Netherlands, every year between and 10 and 20 babies below the age of twelve months die in this way. Compared to other developed countries, the Netherlands have the lowest reported rates of SIDS.