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The new baby sleep advice

The Public Health Agency of Canada’s new suggestion for preventing SIDS has parents tossing and turning for no good reason

John Hoffman,

Originally published in Today's Parent April 2011

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I’ve seen some wacky parenting advice in my time. But recently I came across one of the oddest and least practical suggestions ever: To prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), parents should sleep on a mattress on the floor of their baby’s room. That, in effect, is one of the strategies the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is saying parents should consider in a new brochure called Safe Sleep for Your Baby.

To be fair, this tidbit is only one small part of the PHAC’s largely excellent brochure designed to prevent SIDS. Constructing sound advice for “safe sleep,” as authorities call it, is tricky because while research has uncovered numerous risk factors for SIDS, the science doesn’t always translate into simple safety rules that make sense for all families.

Why is the PHAC suggesting parents sleep on a mattress in their baby’s room? That originates with research showing that babies who die in their sleep are less likely than average to have been in the same room as their parents.

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