During National Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Awareness Month, health officials are going over the factors and how to prevent this from happening.

Greene County Public Health Social Worker Sara Miller says SIDS is the unexplained death of a baby that typically happens to newborns that are less than one year old and when they are asleep in their cribs.

“The cause of SIDS specifically is unknown. But it may be caused by problems in an infant’s brain that controls breathing and waking up from sleep.” 

Miller points out that even though no cause exists for SIDS, some of the physical factors that can contribute to SIDS are brain defects, low birth weight, a pre-existing respiratory infection, and sleeping on a soft bed while the baby is on its stomach or side. She notes the risk factors include a family history of SIDS, along with the baby’s gender, age, race, second smoke and premature births. 

Miller explains some preventive measures against SIDS are having the baby sleep on its back throughout their first year of life, keeping a crib as bare as possible, not overheating the crib and sleeping in their own crib and not a shared bed, not using pacifiers that have cords or strings attached, and breast feeding when possible. She adds that according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the 3,000 unexpected infant deaths that happen annually nationally, about 1,000 are SIDS-related.