[DocsNemesis]

> *************************
> New Zealand SIDS Death Rate Decreases
>
> New statistics released by the New Zealand Ministry of
> Health show that the national rate of Sudden Infant
> Death Syndrome (SIDS) fell by 70% after an educational
> campaign in wrapping mattresses with special
> polyethelene covers was begun. The program began after
> research by a NZ scientist showed a link between SIDS
> and the toxic fumes emitted by mattresses.
>
> According to the statistics, NZ Maori babies are 10
> times more likely than NZ European (Pakeha) babies to
> die of SIDS.(2) Following the implementation of
> mattress-wrapping by the Pakeha community over the
> last eleven years (with an 85% reduction in their SIDS
> rate), New Zealand has the highest inter-ethnic SIDS
> disparity of any country in the world.
>
> In contrast to the US and UK, where back sleeping has
> been adopted as a method to prevent crib death, New
> Zealand began to publicize mattress-wrapping in 1994,
> with the practice widely adopted. Since then, the rate
> of deaths on unwrapped mattresses has continued to
> increase, while no deaths have been reported for
> babies sleeping on wrapped mattresses. Another
> advantage to this solution is that babies can sleep in
> a variety of positions and not suffer from
> plagiocephaly, or flattened heads.
>
> The results of the New Zealand mattress-wrapping
> program have been published in two peer-reviewed
> journals of environmental medicine(3) and far exceed
> the results of any other SIDS prevention program in
> the world.
>
> Notes
>
> Source of statistics: New Zealand Ministry of Health
> (final statistics to 2001; provisional statistics for
> 2002 and 2003; progress counts for 2004 and 2005).
> NZ Maori SIDS rate: 2.0 deaths per 1000 live births;
> NZ European/Pakeha SIDS rate: 0.2 deaths per 1000 live
> births.
> Journal of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine
> 2004;14(3): 221-232. Zeitschrift fuer Umweltmedizin
> 2002; 44: 18-22.
> For further information, see: www.cotlife2000.co.nz
>

 

[Eli's_mommy]

Amazing!!! Where do you get this stuff to wrap the mattress with? We cosleep..should we have our mattress wrapped???

 

[Minoh]

Yeah, I've heard about this. It's one of the reasons we decided to go with organic latex for our crib mattress (not that ds spends any time in the crib; we probably should have bought a new mattress for our bed instead

).

 

[SweetPotato]

I've heard of this as well-- actually read somewhere that the link has been disproven, but will have to search for the url. It would be great to find this information on an official NZ government website-- I think the ".co.nz" suffix is the general suffix for any joe schmoe's website in NZ and so it looks to me like these folks might be spinning the results a bit in order to boost sales of their "babe safe" products. I think it would be awesome if the cuase for SIDS was so cut and dry, but I'd beware of taking scientific advice from someone trying to sell me something!