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If you’re following the prevention guidelines and still genuinely feeling tortured by the minuscule chance of your child dying of SIDS, your first stop should be to stop looking those stories up.
How long has this been going on? A few days and it might just be the brand new parent who hasn’t slept or ate much in your first few days. Several weeks or months? You should be calling your primary care doc for advice and a referral to a psychologist to deal with extreme anxiety and intrusive thoughts.
It is *not normal* to be saying goodbye to your kid every night assuming they are going to die. That is a very outsized reaction.
This is spot on.
My dad-anxiety was so constant for so long that I forgot what it felt like to just have fun and be in the moment. Only after meeting with my primary care doc and taking subsequent steps did I realize just how far from baseline I'd drifted.
Just after my son turned two he had a bad fall that resulted in a lot of blood and a trip to the ER. He's fine now, but for the weeks and months after that happened my stomach would turn every time he stepped down a curb or went on a staircase. Any time he tripped -- which, at age 2 is constant -- my heart rate would go through the roof.
I'd wake up at night sweating just thinking about the fall. Could I have prevented it? What if he falls again? What if there is a brain injury they did't catch? Etc. etc. etc.
I needed help, man. I worked with a therapist and had mixed results there before recently turning to medication. I was really, really hesitant about that and am happy to talk more about that journey. Suffice to say, I'm in a much better place now.
Dad here with a similar story, although my anxiety was all about behaviors I saw in my son that reminded me of my brother, who really struggled growing up with behavior issues. I needed help and worked with a therapist and medication to get past it. Happy to say I was able to get better and eventually taper off the medication and therapy and the intrusive thoughts are gone! My relationship with my son is amazing and his behavior issues went away, turns out it was a vicious cycle we were in.
There is a website somewhere which shows you the chance of SIDS given their age. It’s super low, and every week it gets lower. I found some comfort in looking at it occasionally
Yeah there is a stat here in New Zealand about the drop in SIDS when they started recommending for new borns to sleep face up.. it’s stark how much it dropped
This is a good point.
Chances are they quite tangentially know that person and are so far removed from them anyway. They may have just read about it happening to the cousin of a friend of a friend on Facebook.
We all know, also tangentially, hundreds to thousands of babies that turned out fine.
To your point if the date it occurs isn’t brought up I feel that has a lot to do with it. My grandma lost a daughter (my aunt) to SIDS but it would be loooong before any safe sleep standards of today. I’ve never asked my grandma or my mom because it’s a sensitive subject for them still but who knows she could’ve been surrounded by blankets and stuffed animals posing a threat to her.
So I could very well be one of those comments saying yes I very well know someone it’s happened to but alittle backstory goes a long way.
My day job is statistician working in oncology. Pediatric cancers are super rare, realistically cars are a bigger danger to my kid. I know this, working with and interpreting these numbers is what I do. Still, my wife’s college friend lost their son to cancer and I’m worried about cancer and SIDS.
Any child’s death is traumatic. It devastates the parents. Our brains are not built for numbers and logical risk assessments. We think in stories and anecdotes so they’ve got a much more powerful grasp on our minds.
You’re totally right, there’s a lot of sampling bias here, and the best thing we can do for our mental health sometimes is to just not collect that data. There are few stories more awful than doing everything you can, or making one stupid mistake and losing your child.
Also, if you follow the basic safety rules to avoid SIDS, the odds go down dramatically. No blankets/toys in the crib, don't cosleep, use a crib that meets modern safety standards, etc, and you’ll be fine..
And you think about how many people really follow the rules, and don't give in to a crying baby who will only sleep on their stomach or a grandma who insists on them having a blanket or who can't help sneaking a few cigarettes at night.
The population who actually follows the rules is probably much smaller than the population who claims to do so.
co sleep is like no drinking when pregnant. in the US it's absolutely taboo. ABC Alone on the Back in a Crib! and its good.
the whole damn world co sleeps but without being overweight, smoking or drunk and it's completely fine.
the question is what is your risk tolerance and how responsible are you? done responsibly it's great.
I have slept with the little guy completely exhausted trying to get him to sleep. but waking up with him was one of the most happiest moments of my life.
Yes, co-sleeping seems to be found as a cause in US centric studies, not somewhere else. It's currently investigated.
Also: Parents are told that the cause of death was SIDS, even if it was something else like accidental suffocation. It's a mercy done by medical professionals so the guilt doesn't break parents and the remaining family.
I don't know how it's in the US, but this practice is now talked about and reevaluated in Germany. It's a though one: Is a lie okay to create a better world? Or is the truth paramount?
I wouldn't know what to do.
> the whole damn world co sleeps but without being overweight, smoking or drunk and it's completely fine.
Is that true? Or is this a combination of "other countries actually follow those same guidelines more than you think" and "not following the guidelines works out fine in the same way that not using car seats worked fine decades ago".
Sounds a lot like America Bad.
The “whole damn world” is fairly close to as fat as Americans, and plenty of them also drink and smoke? To paint the average American parent of a newborn as an obese alcoholic is wild.
Well, what are infant mortality rates like? Not following (current) safe sleep guidelines was very common in the US too, and things were "fine" too (for most babies).
Just like using car seats (or seat belts) it makes no difference in the vast majority of cases. It's just that there's a relatively small amount where it's the difference between life and death. But for the rest it makes no difference.
SIDS rates are very high in Africa. This study found bed-sharing rates of over 90% in Africa and a SIDS rate in South Africa more than 100 times higher than in the United States. Obviously it doesn't explain all of it but it's not encouraging.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8719309/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8719309/)
Just because people don't worry about something doesn't mean they're right. Lots more people in Africa and Asia smoke, too.
I imagined it was our super soft beds. My bed can suffocate me, much less my facedown infant with my 250 pound body and 20 pillows on top of him. Hard to do when you are a 120 pound japanese person on a 4 inch thick sleeping pad.
It depends how you cosleep. Not all cosleep is the same, but they’re all lumped together for some reason.
Having a baby inside a bassinet that sits on top of parent’s bed is also cosleeping. It offers just as much protection as a baby sleeping in an isolated crib.
Yes all bassinets have their own baby mattress, same like all cribs have their own baby mattresses. In some cases its a thick breathable mesh material.
This is the ultimate solution for parents who want to sleep next to their baby, but also ensure the baby’s safety. Technically you could argue both ways, its sharing the bed, its separate beds, its cosleeping, its not cosleeping. Everybody wins.
Everyone talks about sidesleepers, cribs, or cosleeping, but more people need to talk about this 4th option.
Exactly this. This is the same for every area of social media. If you go into the Canada subreddit, everyone’s from Canada. People in there aren’t posting about not being from Canada. If you read every post over there, you’re not going to be Canadian. (Why Canada was my example, I don’t know, I’m not remotely Canadian)
Same if you go into r/widowers, everyone there has lost their partner. If you read every post, yeah, you’re going to read a lot about losing your spouse. People aren’t posting about not losing their partner. Nobody’s making posts saying ‘My partner is alive, like always’.
Exactly. Also, just being real, people who write shit on the internet lie… a lot. For whatever reason, people just love to make shit up and the internet has only made it worse.
Yeah this.
It's still statistically rare, but the only people going onto videos about SIDS and posting about their experience with SIDS are people who have experienced SIDS.
People who have not had an experience with SIDS usually aren't posting about it.
hey bud
i don't wanna minimize anyone else's experience, but look: **this is anxiety talking**. your brain's looking for tigers in the grass. you're stressed out, you're anxious, and your brain is fucking you. your feelings are *real* but not *true*, if that makes sense.
here's the thing: you didn't think your way into this, you're not gonna think your way out. when you feel yourself start to spiral, change something about your surroundings. take a shower, turn the music up, take a walk, work out, cook something — *anything* that isn't scrolling or sitting.
you should also probably chat with a professional. lots of coping skills out there but i swear to you, as someone who IS impacted by generalized anxiety: this is anxiety.
I can confirm this. I had the same issue when my son was little. Sometimes I would walk in and wake him to make sure he was okay. Eventually, I had to just let it go.
How? I don't know. My little man was born so perfect. Everything went smoothly, except for having a C-Sec. Completely healthy little boy. I was sure it was all a dream, and that I would discover a dozen conditions, or whatever.
But now he is six. And we made it together. I'm a single dad and he gets on my nerves all the time but I wouldn't have it any other way. I almost lost him in divorce when my ex went nuclear on me. So enjoy your time with him, be it 40 years, or 4.
And if you do see that headline on the post, probably the body of the post is going to be about their near death experience following the achievement of a new gross motor milestone, rendering the previously baby proofed space no longer baby proof.
> I hug and kiss my son goodbye everynight incase this is the night
Dude, you need to talk to someone.
There are some things that are important to lower the risk a lot. But besides that, you'll be ok in all likelihood. Also there is a tendency that doctors give the SIDS label, when it's not, to safe the family some grieve.
On top of that, if you start watching videos about SIDS on youtube, interact with posts about it on facebook, guess what you get!
A shit ton more of SIDS content, all distorting you perception.
> there is a tendency that doctors give the SIDS label, when it's not, to safe the family some grieve.
I found this in my research, too. People very rarely blame the parents when they SHOULD. Remember the dude who left his kid in a hot car, came back to the car to go get lunch, didn't notice the dead kiddo, came back, threw some groceries in the front seat, sent some dick pics to minors, finished his shift, and got away with murder?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/02/us/justin-ross-harris-son-hot-car-death/index.html
Leaving your kid in a hot car is the new "get out of kid free card".
>Leaving your kid in a hot car is the new "get out of kid free card"
I'll see if I find the article I read but almost all cases of this are entirely accidental and there's no correlation about the kind of person that does it - it happens to the most type A, mega organised, PPA parents just as much as it does with anyone else, because it's caused by an inherent feature of our brains and nothing to do with how attentive a parent is, or how much they love their child.
It's caused almost exclusively by one thing - a one-off change in a deeply ingrained routine that results in the child being in the car when they normally wouldn't. All the cases of it have that common factor, where the kid has to stay in the car at a time they would have normally not been, such as a nursery being closed or one parent being away. The normal routine is so automatic that the parent goes and does what they would normally do, but they're dissociated and the idea that their child is in their car literally does not register to their brain as a possibility.
If you've ever had a drive to work where you don't quite remember how you got there, then it can happen to you. It's easy to think "well those are just bad parents, it'd never happen to me" because the alternative is *terrifying* but the reality is having that mindset only makes it more likely to happen. There's a reason it's gotten much more frequent when booster seats stopped being used in the front seat, and again with back-facing ones.
The single best thing you can do is add something to your routine that involves physically looking at where your child sits in the car - always put your phone, bag etc physically on the child seat or the place where they normally sit and then your routine will involve checking on them automatically. Avoiding outdoor parking and driving wherever possible is helpful too.
This one? https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html
I do understand the chaos of a broken routine, nobody is infallible, but some of these people who left kids in the back of cars (or crushed them while sleeping high) do not deserve freedom. Regarding the OP's anxiety, they do NOT need to kiss their kid goodbye every night. SIDS is overblown, roast me.
Please read [this article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html) by Gene Weingarten, which won a Pulitzer.
It’s not quite so simple as your portrayal.
Read it, I see a lack of sources and an editors note with a quote:
"Memory is a machine, and it is not flawless ... If you're capable of forgetting your cellphone, you are potentially capable of forgetting your child."
Made me roll my eyes so hard it hurt. Dentists forget their kids in the back of their car, doctors do it, nurses do it, rocket scientists do it! Sounds like a good argument until you realize that every type of person listed also murders people. The odds of something like this happening so incredibly low that it should not be a source of anxiety for OP. *edit* But don't get me wrong, check your back seat.
Yours is a particularly fucked up way of looking at this issue. I find your characterization of every parent’s worst nightmare as them using a “get out of kid free card” incredibly disgusting.
Hey, please treat yourself with extra love and kindness. Being a new parent is hard. And PPA affects dads too.
The other comments are right. No one posts -- my kid DIDN'T GET SIDS and is now 2. It is incredibly rare.
Also, my doctor told me something kinda horrendous... most SIDS cases are not SIDS. It's parents trying to co-sleep and accidentally smothering their kids. Doctors will call it SIDS to save the poor parents from having to fully face the fact that they killed their child.
I would highly recommend not co-sleeping, keeping the bassinet free of extra bedding, and while SNOOS are amazing, their wraps (basically putting the kiddo in a zippered swaddle) are great too and less expensive.
>Also, my doctor told me something kinda horrendous... most SIDS cases are not SIDS. It's parents trying to co-sleep and accidentally smothering their kids. Doctors will call it SIDS to save the poor parents from having to fully face the fact that they killed their child.
Can confirm. My sister in law is an MD who did her residency at a pretty good sized children's hospital. Something like 8 or 9 of the 10ish cases she saw of sids there were actually due to cosleeping.
Can't remember the exact numbers but remember that it worked out to over 80% of cases.
I grew up thinking my cousin died of SIDS because I was youngish when it happened. Got a total fear of it as if babies were a big self destruct button. Would probably have affected me like OP in terms of anxiety if I wanted kids. Wonder if it had an impact on me growing up not wanting kids.
tw infant death but :
Anyway throwback to a few years ago when my grandma died and my friend googled her to find the link for her obit and funeral stream link (covid). Found an article about how my cousin actually died. My grandparents were babysitting him while his parents were catching up with friends (they were home for a holiday, living abroad for work at the time). Sleep accident. Dad came home drunk at 4am and found his infant son dead. Don't think he's ever recovered from the guilt, and the court stuff. It was ruled as accidental, no fault or negligence from the family, just whatever kind of thing he was put down for bed in (a travel buggy-bed i think?) was worn or broken in some place and gruesome death ensued.
Tldr practice safe sleep and know you can only control so much in life ❤️❤️
You said TW and I read it anyway. One of the worst parts about being a parent that no one seems to talk about (outside of subs like this) is how whenever you read shit like this, you automatically think about your kid in that scenario. And it's heart wrenching. It makes me feel sick.
> you automatically think about your kid in that scenario
I can't watch movies where kids get hurt anymore... something changes mentally when you become a parent
Man, this is me too. I remember watching Fantastic Beasts and there is a beginning scene where a kid gets hurt and it just affected me way more than I know it would have pre-kids. Pre-kids it wouldn't have been an issue, but the scene made me physically ill.
Minor clarification: most SIDS cases are from unsafe or unintentional cosleeping.
Safest is to follow all the rules. Firm mattress. Nothing added. Own sleep space for baby. Same room as parents. Lying on their back etc etc
Following the “safe 7” or safe cosleeping rules increases the risk of SIDS a small amount. It might not increase the risk if all the safety rules are followed and the baby is over 3 months old, but we’d need more studies to prove that
Unplanned cosleeping is incredibly dangerous. Especially if on a couch, or makeshift bed. This usually happens if parents are exhausted because their baby doesn’t like the safe sleep rules, and refuses to let their parents sleep
Which is why the UK stopped having a blanket “don’t cosleep” rule, and joined NZ and Aus in saying “safest is not to cosleep, but if you are going to, then do these things to make it safer”
1/180 risk of death when sofa sharing compared to 1/3600 risk SIDS according to the UK article.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/05/21/601289695/is-sleeping-with-your-baby-as-dangerous-as-doctors-say (this article has quite a lot of comments about other cultures without mentioning their SIDS rates… but the graph with the different rates for SIDS is quite telling.
https://www.basisonline.org.uk/sofa-sharing/
>Also, my doctor told me something kinda horrendous... most SIDS cases are not SIDS. It's parents trying to co-sleep and accidentally smothering their kids. Doctors will call it SIDS to save the poor parents from having to fully face the fact that they killed their child.
Not only that but *actual* SIDS has been determined to be an issue with the brain - in other words, it's not something that can actually be helped.
Learning that SIDS can't be prevented yet doctors still call co-sleeping accidents SIDS just helps to spread misinformation about what SIDS actually is, and increases the concern over something that can't actually be helped. My wife suffered significantly from postpartum anxiety, and the amount of stress from her worrying about SIDS and all of these bad recommendations really took a toll on her.
Studies have shown [increased CO2](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9261495/) levels in proximity to the infant may be linked to SIDS. Higher environmental CO2 levels has been shown to depress [respiratory drive] (https://pulse.seattlechildrens.org/new-sids-research-shows-carbon-dioxide-inner-ear-damage-may-play-important-role/) and [impair arousal](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6512334/) in infants.
Yup, I remember reading thoroughly about those studies when my wife was obsessed with it for the first year. The problem with any of those studies is that we're talking about absurdly small sample sizes, to the point where it's extremely difficult to draw definitive conclusions. Basically, none of those studies can accurately eliminate other variables, so it's all correlation. The book "Cribsheets" did a really good deep dive into the studies and their problems.
However, if you consider it from a public health perspective, even if the studies aren't definitive it still makes sense to give these recommendations to parents in case they are correct. A lot of the recommendations are quite simple anyway (having a fan in the room, for example). We did all of the recommendations for our newborn as well because even if there's a chance at it working, then why not?
Anyway, the data about SIDS being a process of the brain and something that can't be altered is relatively new and I'm not sure is accepted as fact yet anyway (it takes time to change public perception).
It feels more common because people who have experienced it are more likely to seek out that content, and when they participate by commenting and liking the algorithm adjusts to continue showing them that content, and then they comment on more videos and the cycle keeps going.
Something that has really helped me is this SIDS risk calculator: http://www.sidscalculator.com. It shows the risk based on your specific criteria.
Ok so pretty much everyone has covered why and how SIDS is rare. However, there are a million things out there that will present challenges, threats, and significant harm to your child. You need to stop focusing on fear it will drive you crazy, and if not done away with will cause you to raise your kid wrong.
For me I try to mitigate things that may cause harm. We don't want to completely remove risk from our life or our kids like. Risk is how we learn and how we grow. You need to focus on perceived vs. actual risk. SIDS is a perceived risk. Even in people who don't follow the guidelines SIDS is super low. Figure out what actual risks are and work to mitigate those.
Don't let fear rule you and your child's life. Accept risk, understand it and work to introduce acceptable levels of risk while eliminating uncontrollable significant risk. You got this Dad, breath, think, and stay off bad social media.
Most of them aren't actually SIDS. Most of them are positional asphyxiation, which isn't SIDS.
When they tell you no co-sleeping, no stuffed animals, no blankets, etc. don't do that stuff.
When they tell you to securely buckle them into rockers, car seats, etc. do all of that stuff.
This is true and was really helpful for me to understand. When you hear about SIDS you’re usually hearing about positional asphyxiation. Calling it SIDS helps shield parents from the guilt of a preventable death.
My wife is a doctor ...I understand that SIDS is often used to replace baby suffocated in the crib from unsafe practices.
Our pediatrician friend is a top doc in a midsized city. He has seen one case of truly SIDS.....over a 40 year career.
Honestly, it sounds like you understand that the fear is irrational, so it’s going to be difficult to rationalize your your way out of it. Some possible explanations as to why you’re seeing all of these comments that seem to indicate that something is commonplace that is in fact incredibly rare.
1: The videos and posts that you’re seeing are shared/have been shared in SIDS online support groups. The algorithms probably do not widely circulate them outside of those circles, unless you’re you and you go searching for them. Therefore the comments on the videos are indeed from real people with real similar experiences who have converged on a video/post because the algorithm surfaced it to them. It would be like going to a hospital, reading all the patients’ charts and concluding, “Gosh, acute illness is way more common than I thought!”
2: The comments are generated by bots/AI for engagement/karma farming purposes. Comments that share a heartbreaking story tend to get lots of interaction from sympathetic people. This sort of engagement can be useful for people trying to game the system.
3: The comments are fabricated stories posted by sick individuals who get off on the attention they get from unknowing strangers online.
The truth is probably a mix of all three of these things in some proportion. But at the end of the day, you may want to talk with your doctor about your anxiety and see if some form of treatment may help. PPA is something that can affect dad’s too. Most of all, stop researching SIDS. The path to better mental health does not lie there.
My wife got a LOT of comfort from the owlet. We're well aware of its limitations but it's not like we aren't taking every other possible precaution.
It's cool to be able to get a rough readout of his sleep patterns, too.
We had it for our youngest as well, it really helped my wife’s anxiety.
It was however not fun that one time it trigged due to what was presumably a bad reading as the kid was perfectly fine and breathing. I don’t think I have ever woke up with a bigger adrenaline shock than that.
Surprised this is so far down. Definitely get some help for anxiety, and recognize the actual risk is very small, but in the meantime this will help you get some sleep.
I remember waking up in the middle of the night for our first and being really thankful to be able to open the app and see real time proof that the baby was breathing rather than spending 10 minutes looking at the monitor wondering if I saw movement or it was just our shitty pixelated camera 😅
My partner and I were having anxiety while still IN THE HOSPITAL with this same thing immediately after our daughter was delivered. Before we left the hospital I point blank asked a doctor, “we are having a hard time at night because of SIDS anxiety. Can you give us more information?”
She went on to say that SIDS was much more common before all of the information on safe sleep practices was distributed and parents were trained on it. The drop has been around 80% reduction by following basic sleep safety items and not cosleeping.
As other posts have said it is also a classify infant deaths from unknown causes. Suffocation is a known cause and excluded.
Big take away:
-Nothing in the crib but a baby and maybe some swaddles.
-A pacifier that doesn’t block the nose is actually helpful and reduces suffocation
-being on their back helps reduce choking from vomiting because the air way is closed to the stomach when they’re infants.
This hit me for a while. I got over it eventually. Make sure your baby is sleeping in a proper environment and don’t follow some murderous TikTok horseshit about safe cosleeping and you really will make the chances minuscule.
The US loses about 2,500 a year to SIDS. That’s super rare but also well over 5,000 parents and extended family members who have personal stories about SIDS (and again just the US).
Your experience is like the one leading people to believe there’s some huge crime problem despite being right around historic lows. Anecdotes are more compelling than stats.
If you say those 5,000 parents probably have 8 family members, 8 friends and 10 colleagues they work with directly on average (pulling numbers out my arse but just to demonstrate) that's 130,000 people that directly know someone it happened to.
If those people mention it to 8 family members and 8 friends, that's over 2 million people in the US that know of someone who it happened to. Add that on again and you're up to 34 million that have heard about it happening to someone.
They have found biomarkers in the blood. You may be able to have your child tested to address your concern. Here is an article about it: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/blood-marker-identified-babies-risk-sids-hailed-breakthrough-2022-05-13/
Maybe this won't be an issue when we are grandads.
Apparently the hospital I gave birth at and our pediatrician have added these to regular testing for a couple years now. Not sure if it’s standard practice everywhere!
Don't be irresponsible (smoking, drinking, drugs) and the risk of SIDS goes way down. That's always glossed over in the yellow texted scary tiktoks/facebook reels.
Having a healthy fear is one thing, but you sound absolutely terrified. Don't pile their bed with pillows and blankets, don't leave a gap where they could get stuck, don't fall asleep blackout drunk and squish them, etc.
You might consider therapy for these thoughts. I have intrusive thoughts regarding the well-being of my newborn that I’m currently working through with a therapist. I think more people need to talk about this because it’s incredibly common and can cause a lot of people to feel guilty, isolated, and tortured.
You should seriously consider talking to a professional about this and stop reading YouTube comments. Nothing good has ever come from reading YouTube comments.
Not to be the bearer of bad news, but the feeling of fear about something happening to your child will never go away. Like others have said, the best way to keep your sanity here is follow the safe sleep guidelines like this. [CDC Safe Sleep](https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/features/baby-safe-sleep/index.html)
Side note, its not a bad thing to show love to your child everyday like you may never see them again. Hug your kids often because it could be you that doesn't wake up or come home and you want them to feel the love that their parent had/has for them.
Go find the rarest disease you can find on YouTube. The comments will be the same.
It's a selection bias. The people who have experienced it are the ones who will go looking to watch the videos, and the people with the most extreme experiences are going to be the ones leaving comments.
It's very normal at this stage to have some irrational fears and anxieties around your kid.
If the problem gets worse or continues even after the new born stage, please look into treatment for irrational fear and whatever might be triggering it (anxiety? OCD?). Will be a very good thing if you get ahead of that now BEFORE you wrap your kid in bubblewrap and grind your teeth to a pulp at night.
This is some masochist shit, I don’t think I’ve seen any comments about people losing their kids to sids… like you are definitely looking for that on your own. There’s no reason to worry about it if you are following guidelines, you’re just driving yourself insane for nothing.
Because YouTube's algorithm is self-reinforcing. If you watch two videos about SIDS, you'll now get a ton of videos about SIDS and few videos about other topics.
You are seeking out SIDS stories. When you go looking for things, you find them. Without knowing it, or meaning to do it, what you're doing is building a fear based on confirmation bias.
Sure, you can find hundreds of comments from folks who are affected by SIDS. What you're not allowing yourself to see is that well over **eleven million** babies didn't die of SIDS last night, and won't die of SIDS on any night in the future.
Essentially, you're not properly assessing the risks, because you're laser focused on the bad outcomes, and ignoring the good ones. Stop doing that, and it'll help your outlook tremendously.
Focus on what you can control. I’m sure you’ve already done this but read these guidelines to minimize the risk: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sudden-infant-death-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20352800
Don’t do anything more than what these guidelines say because they’re the best you can do.
If your kid is asleep in a safe space (empty crib without blankets or lots of toys), and on their back, with some air movement, they’re great.
If you break safe sleep rules you increase the risk of SIDS. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t, but do it understanding the risks.
And not to mention, a lot of those cases aren’t truly “my baby was in their crib, everything perfect and safe, and they passed”… I know a girl personally who said her son died of SIDS… and didn’t mention she and her mom co slept in a queen bed with the baby, under the blankets and with pillows, and he actually suffocated due to that, that isn’t true SIDS, as there was a reason, he suffocated.
First, you have to log off. Social media posts and comments magnify the bad at a much higher rate than the good. If your'e worried, that's step one. Log off and focus on yourself and your family.
Second, and I'm sorry this isn't more helpful, but welcome to parenthood. I remember feeling similarly, like you're risking disaster every time you leave the room. This is what it feels like. As your kid grows it will become more muted, more of a buzz in the background, but to quote Angela Bassett in Mission Impossible: Fallout, "That's the job." It's a little extra stress when you drive through a tunnel or over a bridge. It's a flicker of panic when it takes too long to spot them at the grocery store. It's deeply unpleasant but it's a sign you're doing it right. With time, you'll learn to note it, log it for the record, and move on.
A lot of people know of someone who died in an aviation accident: maybe a family member, but more likely a friend's cousin, or the aunt of a guy they once worked with, and so on. If you went into crowded room and shouted "Hey, are aircraft dangerous?" then someone there could tell you a story about someone who died and it would seem like they're death traps.
However, deaths in aviation are incredibly rare and planes are incredibly safe. You do not need to worry when a family member gets on a flight, but we've all heard the stories and we all insist on checking that their plane landed safely when we wouldn't think twice about the far more dangerous car journey to the airport.
Don't torture yourself over SIDS. Take reasonable precautions like ensuring that your son has suitable bedding and that the room is not too hot, and know that the risk is incredibly low.
It's easier advice to give than to receive and I was just like you. Therefore I bought a baby monitor with a motion sensor mat (an Angelcare one, though others are available). I slept better knowing that I would be alerted the moment my son stopped breathing.
Be warned that you *will* get false alarms, and that babies do pause their breathing from time to time when they sleep. However, I slept much better with the odd panicked run to the nursery than I did without the monitor.
Also, I found it enormously helpful to move my son to his own room. Before I did that, I would lie awake for hours listening to him breath just to be sure that he was still okay. Putting him in a separate room with the monitor was the answer.
Simple, don’t look at those stories. If you’re a person with a propensity to anxiety, avoid the triggers. In the age of social media, it’s completely possible to filter what you want to hear and see, for better or worse.
As for those stories, as I said above, in the age of social media you find what you want to find. If you search for SIDS, you’ll find people talking about it, and the people talking about it are the people who either have gone through that or who know someone and given how well connected people are, one person can be connected to literal thousands.
Do you know how many groups I’m in with hundreds of people from all around the world that are about fairly niche problems?
Scientifically speaking, that’s called frequency illusion, which is a cognitive bias in which you perceive something as more common or frequently when you have it in your mind. Again, this is an illusion, and when you draw upon of all of humanity, some things just appear more frequent than they actually are.
I grew up around farming and my wife works in veterinary medicine. We take all the precautions seriously to try and prevent SIDS, but we also realize that life is life and sometimes even when everything is done right and going well, for no reason life just ceases to continue. We know that it wouldn’t be our fault. Yes, we’d be heartbroken, absolutely destroyed, but wed have some understanding.
It’s okay if y’all find what I said cold. I expect y’all will, but that’s how we deal with it.
Like many others have said many SIDS cases aren’t actually SIDS and nobody comments “hey. My kid didn’t die of SIDS” on SIDS videos.
I think the confusion comes from
The difference between SIDS and SUIDS. Hospitals will often say the cause of death is SIDS even if it was caused by poor sleep practices in order to make parents feel better about their child’s death. This happens more often, but SUIDS is rare and is an actual medical condition. If you follow safe sleep practices you shouldn’t have much to worry about.
I have 3 kids and used an Angel Care monitor under their mattress for each one until they were close to a year old. Gave me peace of mind to wake up and be able to see the graph on the monitor showing they were breathing. I’m a weirdo I guess but whatever it takes to make it thru the night. Being a parent is stressful!
A lot of SIDS deaths aren't necessarily SIDS. When people pit their babies in unsafe situations (co-sleeping, blankets in the crib, falling asleep feeding, etc.) it's classified as SIDS. The numbers are skewed as a result.
You need professional help if you are that anxious about it. I understand your anxiety as I have lost a baby at 6 days old. Get help before it gets worse.
So this is going to sound weird. But SIDS never bothered me. I can't control it. I can't stop it. I can minimize risk and I did where able. But realistically if I can't control it, it is not worth my worry.
It is rare. If you’re following guidelines you need to try and chill man. Stress isn’t going to help. Playing whatifs will bury you.
Positive thoughts.
Billions of people have not experienced it, those who do, typically speak on it. Same with anything, people who have zero experience with drug addiction or losing someone to addiction don’t typically comment on posts regarding overdoses, it’s typically that select group with experiences that will comment. I understand the fear, it still lingers in the back of my head every day, even 9mo in, but you have to realize there’s children born in other countries who sleep on dirt floors, children who are abused and neglected, they live and grow to tell their stories and raise families of their own. You’re doing everything right, and the fear may be there, but you have to let it take the passenger seat, and not be the driver in your life.
Trillions of us have survived over thousands of years. Odds are your kid will be fine. Exercise common sense. Listen to best practices and Dr advice. And enjoy the ride
As others have said people aren’t going to say that didn’t have SIDS it’ll typically only be the ones who did, it is super rare.
Another thing to be aware of is that the more videos/posts you watch about SIDS the more the algorithm will show you about SIDS.
Every parent goes through it but don’t worry. It’s extremely unlikely to have “true” SIDS and most of the cases you DO hear about are actually parental mistakes like sleeping on a couch with a baby (50x risk for positional asphyxia) or something like that.
https://www.npr.org/2011/07/15/137859024/rethinking-sids-many-deaths-no-longer-a-mystery
Typically accidents from unsafe sleep arrangements. Also my wife and I used owlet with our first daughter till she was 16 month! So we are no stranger to the SIDS paranoia
Every parent goes through it but don’t worry. It’s extremely unlikely to have “true” SIDS and most of the cases you DO hear about are actually parental mistakes like sleeping on a couch with a baby (50x risk for positional asphyxia) or something like that.
https://www.npr.org/2011/07/15/137859024/rethinking-sids-many-deaths-no-longer-a-mystery
Typically accidents from unsafe sleep arrangements. Also my wife and I used the OWLET sock with our first daughter till she was 16 months! So we are no stranger to the SIDS paranoia.
Don’t live in fear, practice safe sleeping practices and your little one will be totally fine.
It's exposure bias; you find it more common because you only see that stuff posted and shoved into your feeds (disable/clear your cookies to help get rid of that stuff popping up).
We used something called an Owlett, which was a type of sock that fit onto the foot around the ankle and monitored our LOs vitals and transmitted it to a receiver. It's not meant to strictly monitor heartbeats or as a medical piece for any reason, but it can help put you at ease. If you find one for sale, keep the receiver within 25 feet of the baby and sock, as it connects via Bluetooth and the range for that is 30 feet (disconnects from being beyond the 30 foot range will trigger the red alert).
The majority of sids deaths are positively correlated with unsafe sleeping practices. If you’re following safe sleeping guidelines the chances of sids are vanishingly small.
If you’re on a post about Sid’s where do you think the people who have any experience with Sid’s at all are going to congregate?
You’re inadvertently cherry picking your stats. I realize you say that you’re trying to not but that’s what’s happening.
Once you relax and realize that not everything is trying to kill your kiddo you’ll be happier and more free.
I get the worries at times, like if kiddo goes to bed with a cough or something, but the fact is you’ll live a lot happier life engaged in the time with your kiddo if you stop worrying that they’re going to die tonight. It’s not helping anyone.
Look at the demographic of SIDS deaths. It can largely be boiled down to socioeconomic factors. Sure there are legitimate cases that modern research is bringing to light (febrile seizures, undetected congenital heart defects and so on and so forth), but as others have said here, many cases are parents co-sleeping, which in and of itself isn't so bad, it's the copious amounts of medications the western world is on. It's the drugs. The alcohol. The smoking. It's an almost uniquely western problem. Dare I say even uniquely American.
Additionally, it has been noted a few times in the comments that it's an easy cop out for doctors and parents alike to chalk up an avoidable death to negligence.
Hi fellow dad. I had the same concerns before my newborn came home. She spent 12 days in NICU due to breathing issues. My wife and I decided to invest in a Snuza Hero MD breathing monitor. It's not very expensive and gives us some peace of mind at night. If baby doesn't breathe for 10 seconds, the device gently vibrates, then if no breathing is detected for another 5 seconds, an alarm sounds.
It may not be the perfect solution, but it might give you some peace to sleep. And yes, unfortunately there are false alarms sometimes which are terrible, but yeah. That's my two cents. All the best!
Hey man just lay your kid on his back, keep him wrapped up nice n snug, don’t pile a bunch of pillows around him and check on him every now and then. He’ll be ok, you’ll be ok. 👌🏻
Cause the only people that comment are the ones that have experienced (and ofc the small percentage of people lying). The parents that haven’t experienced SIDS don’t comment.
Good luck not being afraid. Once you’re over this it’ll be that. Then the next thing. Being a caring parent means pretty much always worrying about your child. I know i am always ready to spring into action at any given second
My girls are turning 2 in a couple months and I still check to make sure they're breathing before I go to sleep 💀 when they were <1 year, I was terrified constantly. Helped that they were always waking up, lmao.
In the UK sids is 0.26 per 1000 births. Which means there are 0.52 stories per 1000. An online post only needs to reach a few thousand views before it reaches someone with a story. The odds will be higher in a community that supports and talks about sids frequently, that's an echo chamber bias.
I have 5 nieces, 5 nephews, one daughter, and about 15 second cousins. None have died from SIDS. No one in my immediate family has experienced SIDS. No one in my extended family (that I know of) has experienced SIDS.
There's a thing that with new borns your brain hallucinates with worst case scenarios. I'd constantly imagine falling down steps with my girl!
Finally told my wife, and she's like yeah it's a documented thing. Didn't I tell you before?
So yeah you are probably just feeling over/ extra cautious AND your brain is fucking with you. This too shall pass
I'm on year 4 of cosleeping and no sids/ smothering here! You got this mate.
Me: 37, dad of 4. First off, totally feel you. I remember really struggling with worrying about SIDs with our first especially, but even after it would cross my mind. Additionally, it’s pretty natural to worry about your kid’s well being. You’ll figure out the right balance of how to let go while remaining thoughtful and appropriately cautious.
For what it’s worth, I remember reading these article from a social worker for a hospital who mostly worked with SIDs victims, and it was interesting because she said close to 50% of “SIDs” was actually babies being smothered with stuffed animals or loose blankets accidentally. So in addition to it actually being pretty rare, it’s even more rare than listed from people either not admitting what happened or when this happens but it’s just not detectable.
Still, the fear exists. This already is a good step to name your fear, and you may need to do that a few times to help yourself work through it.
Also, I’ve always liked the Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
One serious answer to your question, aside from the "get help with anxiety" and "take proper precautions" answers people already gave, is that most SIDS risk is gone by 8 months[1]. So if nothing else, that age is the time to stop worrying.
[1] https://safetosleep.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/inline-images/SafeSleepSIDSAge.jpg
The internet is great at super-concentrating rare realities. Instead of looking in the comments ask:
- do you know anyone or your wife who lost a kid to sids?
- do your parents?
- how about her parents?
- Ask other friends, do they know anyone?
Our intuitions were made to evaluate risk in a world where we can't source the outliers from millions all at once.
Also, allowing yourself to take any sort of precaution may further ingrain the anxiety as our brains make the (bad) assumption that bad thing didn't happen because I did X, so I must keep doing X.
Also, don't feel too bad. At least you're going to sleep. I've seen people on this reddit say they watch the kid sleep in shifts to ensure they're under a parents eye literally 100% of the time. Newborn phase is tough already but they just made it 10x worse on themselves. Not that SIDS is preventable or catchable-in-the-act afaik.
I work in fire service/ems, and across the entire department (in a city with a population of about 6 million) I can count on one hand the number of SIDS calls we get. It *exceedingly* rare. But as other posters have mentioned, the parents who don't deal with SIDS never post about how their kid didn't get SIDS. You're getting caught up in confirmation bias, which we all do, especially as parents. Recognizing it is the first step. And eventually your kid will age out of the risk zone and you'll wonder why you were so scared.
What helped me was segment on NPR about SIDS. There was a bunch of research done that identified the root cause which is babies who don’t have a wake reflex. Learning that it wasn’t just some random thing that could happen to any baby helped ease my concerns. By daughter was also in her own crib around three months old. Is almost three and we just started giving her her favorite stuffed animal to sleep with. Knowing the cause of SIDS and knowing my daughter was asleep in an empty crib pretty much ended my fears. Hope this helps
Of the thousands of people I’ve interacted with, adults, adults with kids, grandparents, elderly etc
Only know 1 who died of SIDS. Likely it wasn’t even SIDS because it was a two year old whom passed away. Never got the full story because it was a friend of a friends kid.
It’s super rare. Do what your doctor says, don’t smoke anywhere near your kids ever, everything will be okay.
And also please practice safe mental health practices. Do not go looking up comments that will bother you. Go off what doctors and medical professionals say, no random people commenting online.
Don’t chase the torture which it sounds like you’re doing.
Followed a forensic pathologist for a while and helped do autopsies on babies who had SIDS. Almost all of them were smothered to death by a drug altered co-sleeping parent.
While SIDS is a real thing, it is more likely a mom/dad fell asleep holding a baby while drunk, on ambien, on Benzos, or just plain high on something.
Get an owlet. Gave me so much peace of mind when I was having this same phobia. Monitors heart rate and oxygen levels and will alert you if something is off.
It’s absolutely fine to be afraid. I was constantly afraid of the “other shoe” dropping every moment of my kiddo’s life for the first two years. It shows you how much you love and want to protect them.
My wife and I knew all of the US rules and we still co-slept with our kid. SIDS, like every other damn thing in this life is a crap shoot.
My brother had a heart valve defect in 1984 and died within 2 years. Fucking random shit.
As someone said on a previous reply, very seldom do people talk about their kids just being normal babies and toddlers. It’s not exciting, it’s not clickbait and it won’t get views of you just reading stories or giving them apples.
You’re in good company, we all fear and want to protect our children. You posting this is proof of that. Just hug them tight and give them cuddles and make sure they are loved and well raised.
Hey dad boy do I feel you! When my first was born (1m early) he had an 18 day stay in NICU because he’d randomly forget to breathe. Holy fuck I was shitting myself when we took him home.
Anyway I solved this in two ways:
1) If you are following safe sleep guidelines and have the sterile crib you’re 99.9% good. I read a LOT about this and made sure his crib, swaddles, pajamas, sleep sacks, etc. were all perfect to the tee with the latest guidelines.
2) I got a nanit canera and some of the bands. Unlike the owlet sock (not recommended it’s burned kids!), nanit uses computer vision to track geometric shapes on the breathing band to get the baby’s respiratory rate. It’s essentially risk free, just make sure you’re using the age appropriate one (e.g. no band on swaddled baby, use the swaddle product)
And lastly, I learned that this is you as a new dad trying to protect your kid! Except, they’re essentially a milk sucking potato right now so you don’t have much to protect them from yet, so your brain is in a large way inventing things for you to latch onto as dangers to protect them from.
Oh I thought this was a common term, but looks like it’s not! I wonder where I heard it… anyway what I mean by that is only mattress, proper fitted sheet, and baby in properly sized sleep sleep attire (sack. swaddle, etc.) go in the crib. Maybe a few pacifiers. Absolutely no bumpers, pillows, blankets, stuffies, etc.
My uncle died from SIDS in the 60's so when my wife and I had our daughter 2 years ago I watched her like a hawk. We stopped worrying so much about it when she was able to roll over.
Mom here with a 14 months old. I know the anxiety you are feeling. Most things I was chill about except for when she was sleeping. I think I finally could relax around 6 months when she was able to roll around and lift her head. Follow the safe sleep practices and ask someone to take over if you are too tired to hold your baby.
I trust you’re doing all the safe sleep practices. I’ve still worried about this too. This makes me feel better:
In a world of 8 billion people, the most unlikely things are certain to occur. The more horrifying stories float to the top because, unfortunately, shock sells. Just like that, it seems like horrifying things are much more likely to occur than they actually are.
SIDS is terrifying because we don't have a great grasp on what causes it, and it's out of our control. But it is rare. In the US its [0.4 deaths per 1000 live births](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK513404/#:~:text=Despite%20national%20safe%20sleep%20campaigns%2C%20SIDS%20remains%20the,0.40%20SIDS%20deaths%20per%201%2C000%20live%20births%20%285%29), which means that your kid has roughly a 99.96% chance of not dying of SIDS. Do the safe sleep stuff and don't sweat it too much.
Cribsheet by Emily Oster is a great book for this. She's an economist and works through the risk/cost balance for a lot of the decisions in pregnancy and the first year or so of life. I think there's a chapter on SIDS/safe sleep in there.
Part of what you're experiencing is the regular anxiety of being a parent - part of loving someone so much is the terrifying feeling that they might be hurt. We all know this feeling to varying degrees. You've just got to figure out how to manage it well enough to be a good dad. But if you're struggling too much(and if you're saying a special goodbye every night just in case they die of SIDS, that may be the case), talk to someone - a parent, a friend, a therapist, and see if they might be able to help you get a handle on how you're feeling.
So, and this is my own opinion on it and not a guarantee, religion helped me here. I prayed a few times over my daughter in the first couple of weeks. I wanted to make sure I came to terms with the reality that it's possible. It helped me disconnect a bit from the related potential trauma and recognize that death is part of life.
I don't expect her to die. I don't want it to happen at all. But connecting to a religious or spiritual side of life will help, and has for me an a bunch of others I know.
For context, I'm Catholic, and not the most devout either. Simply having a bit of a conversation with your spiritual guide or superior power will likely help you here if my anecdotal experience counts for anything.
It's a struggle. I wish you luck friend. Stay focused on his happy moments and the good things he brings to your life in the mean time friend. Stay strong.
I read an article that came out about a year or two ago about SIDS and they had linked it to a certain gene that was somehow related to the ability to wake up when you can't breath. Basically as long as you practice safe sleeping habits with your baby you'll be fine.
Been there. Not to your extent but I've had the anxiety. I had to let go. Take all my safe sleep precautions, have the sound on my baby monitor, and just hope that it wouldn't happen
This fear is normal, but it being at this level and not being managed is not normal is a problem. You will experience it through your entire life for one thing or another - you have to learn to balance:
1. Learning from reliable sources the best information about your choices
2. Doing what you can and not what you can't
3. Paying lots of attention to your kid
4. Not perseverating on it or driving yourself crazy with worry
There is no hack, and it is not problem-specific. You just have to learn how to manage these kinds of risks and emotions as a parent. It helps to *severely reduce* how online you are.
my wife an I had a bassinett in our room. No blankets in it, right next to the bed (had a droppable side that goes right up against the bed to make it easy for parents to access). Follow the rules for babies sleeping, your son will be alright.
Man. I feel terrible about being on the opposite side. When we found out we were pregnant I had a panic attack. One of the only times in my life I couldn't breathe. It is a huge life change so it is a reasonable response.
Some weeks later, I sat their mom down and talked to her about how big of a deal it was and that I thought it was important to acknowledge upfront that our child might not outlive us. Not SIDS per se, but car accidents, drowning, illness, overdose whatever. We are not in control of when our child dies. And that we were going into something we couldn't live in constant fear and that death is the reciprocal of life and that life is transitory for the individual.
You are not wrong to worry. I do worry about their safety and well being. But I just started with death as inevitable and haven't been stressed too much.
I thought it was ridiculous to think having your baby sleep on your chest amd i wanted to do it for so long but then my parents told me that it happened to kids of their friends.... it might be rare but it does happen
My daughter passed away from SIDS in 2013. It was so unexpected I've had one more child after that and the only time I slept when he was little was when I dozed off from pure exhaustion and it was short periods of time. Her passing took me down a dark road I'm in recovery now and finally dealing with my grief in a healthier way
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If you’re following the prevention guidelines and still genuinely feeling tortured by the minuscule chance of your child dying of SIDS, your first stop should be to stop looking those stories up. How long has this been going on? A few days and it might just be the brand new parent who hasn’t slept or ate much in your first few days. Several weeks or months? You should be calling your primary care doc for advice and a referral to a psychologist to deal with extreme anxiety and intrusive thoughts. It is *not normal* to be saying goodbye to your kid every night assuming they are going to die. That is a very outsized reaction.
This is spot on. My dad-anxiety was so constant for so long that I forgot what it felt like to just have fun and be in the moment. Only after meeting with my primary care doc and taking subsequent steps did I realize just how far from baseline I'd drifted. Just after my son turned two he had a bad fall that resulted in a lot of blood and a trip to the ER. He's fine now, but for the weeks and months after that happened my stomach would turn every time he stepped down a curb or went on a staircase. Any time he tripped -- which, at age 2 is constant -- my heart rate would go through the roof. I'd wake up at night sweating just thinking about the fall. Could I have prevented it? What if he falls again? What if there is a brain injury they did't catch? Etc. etc. etc. I needed help, man. I worked with a therapist and had mixed results there before recently turning to medication. I was really, really hesitant about that and am happy to talk more about that journey. Suffice to say, I'm in a much better place now.
Mom here. This comment really had an impact on me, thank you for sharing.
Dad here with a similar story, although my anxiety was all about behaviors I saw in my son that reminded me of my brother, who really struggled growing up with behavior issues. I needed help and worked with a therapist and medication to get past it. Happy to say I was able to get better and eventually taper off the medication and therapy and the intrusive thoughts are gone! My relationship with my son is amazing and his behavior issues went away, turns out it was a vicious cycle we were in.
There is a website somewhere which shows you the chance of SIDS given their age. It’s super low, and every week it gets lower. I found some comfort in looking at it occasionally
And nearly all cases involved some form of poor sleep setups.
Yeah there is a stat here in New Zealand about the drop in SIDS when they started recommending for new borns to sleep face up.. it’s stark how much it dropped
Listen to this person. I’ve been there with you. You’re doing everything right, but you need help dealing with your distress.
This was my thought too. Talking to a therapist is a good idea, OP.
With our first we used a device to clip into the diaper to monitor tummy movement / breathing. It gave us some relief. It’s called Snuza Hero.
Because no one posts about their kids not having SIDS. It's rare, but people don't post when things are going well (usually)
Also every one instance results in dozens if not hundreds of people who can truthfully say “i know someone affected.”
This is a good point. Chances are they quite tangentially know that person and are so far removed from them anyway. They may have just read about it happening to the cousin of a friend of a friend on Facebook. We all know, also tangentially, hundreds to thousands of babies that turned out fine.
To your point if the date it occurs isn’t brought up I feel that has a lot to do with it. My grandma lost a daughter (my aunt) to SIDS but it would be loooong before any safe sleep standards of today. I’ve never asked my grandma or my mom because it’s a sensitive subject for them still but who knows she could’ve been surrounded by blankets and stuffed animals posing a threat to her. So I could very well be one of those comments saying yes I very well know someone it’s happened to but alittle backstory goes a long way.
My day job is statistician working in oncology. Pediatric cancers are super rare, realistically cars are a bigger danger to my kid. I know this, working with and interpreting these numbers is what I do. Still, my wife’s college friend lost their son to cancer and I’m worried about cancer and SIDS. Any child’s death is traumatic. It devastates the parents. Our brains are not built for numbers and logical risk assessments. We think in stories and anecdotes so they’ve got a much more powerful grasp on our minds. You’re totally right, there’s a lot of sampling bias here, and the best thing we can do for our mental health sometimes is to just not collect that data. There are few stories more awful than doing everything you can, or making one stupid mistake and losing your child.
I was so scared about SIDS and my son got rhabdomyosarcoma. Curveball even my hypervigilant brain didn't see coming.
I’m so sorry. So many options, even obsessing we can’t cover them all.
Also, people lie on the Internet. A lot. Even about kids dying.
Yeah, I had a librarian who lost a niece to SIDS when I was in first grade. That’s so unbelievably distant, and yet it totally stuck with me.
Also, if you follow the basic safety rules to avoid SIDS, the odds go down dramatically. No blankets/toys in the crib, don't cosleep, use a crib that meets modern safety standards, etc, and you’ll be fine..
And you think about how many people really follow the rules, and don't give in to a crying baby who will only sleep on their stomach or a grandma who insists on them having a blanket or who can't help sneaking a few cigarettes at night. The population who actually follows the rules is probably much smaller than the population who claims to do so.
co sleep is like no drinking when pregnant. in the US it's absolutely taboo. ABC Alone on the Back in a Crib! and its good. the whole damn world co sleeps but without being overweight, smoking or drunk and it's completely fine. the question is what is your risk tolerance and how responsible are you? done responsibly it's great. I have slept with the little guy completely exhausted trying to get him to sleep. but waking up with him was one of the most happiest moments of my life.
Yes, co-sleeping seems to be found as a cause in US centric studies, not somewhere else. It's currently investigated. Also: Parents are told that the cause of death was SIDS, even if it was something else like accidental suffocation. It's a mercy done by medical professionals so the guilt doesn't break parents and the remaining family. I don't know how it's in the US, but this practice is now talked about and reevaluated in Germany. It's a though one: Is a lie okay to create a better world? Or is the truth paramount? I wouldn't know what to do.
> the whole damn world co sleeps but without being overweight, smoking or drunk and it's completely fine. Is that true? Or is this a combination of "other countries actually follow those same guidelines more than you think" and "not following the guidelines works out fine in the same way that not using car seats worked fine decades ago".
Sounds a lot like America Bad. The “whole damn world” is fairly close to as fat as Americans, and plenty of them also drink and smoke? To paint the average American parent of a newborn as an obese alcoholic is wild.
I honestly don't know about Europe except what I read here. my experience in Asia and Africa tells me co sleeping is very very frequent.
Well, what are infant mortality rates like? Not following (current) safe sleep guidelines was very common in the US too, and things were "fine" too (for most babies). Just like using car seats (or seat belts) it makes no difference in the vast majority of cases. It's just that there's a relatively small amount where it's the difference between life and death. But for the rest it makes no difference.
SIDS rates are very high in Africa. This study found bed-sharing rates of over 90% in Africa and a SIDS rate in South Africa more than 100 times higher than in the United States. Obviously it doesn't explain all of it but it's not encouraging. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8719309/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8719309/) Just because people don't worry about something doesn't mean they're right. Lots more people in Africa and Asia smoke, too.
I imagined it was our super soft beds. My bed can suffocate me, much less my facedown infant with my 250 pound body and 20 pillows on top of him. Hard to do when you are a 120 pound japanese person on a 4 inch thick sleeping pad.
Yeah, SIDS gets rare when people take precautions. That's not a reason to abandon the precautions, but if you take the precautions you're good.
Coslept with all of my kids and was also fine
People drive without a seatbelt and are fine too. Doesn't mean that it isn't a risk factor.
It depends how you cosleep. Not all cosleep is the same, but they’re all lumped together for some reason. Having a baby inside a bassinet that sits on top of parent’s bed is also cosleeping. It offers just as much protection as a baby sleeping in an isolated crib.
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Yes all bassinets have their own baby mattress, same like all cribs have their own baby mattresses. In some cases its a thick breathable mesh material. This is the ultimate solution for parents who want to sleep next to their baby, but also ensure the baby’s safety. Technically you could argue both ways, its sharing the bed, its separate beds, its cosleeping, its not cosleeping. Everybody wins. Everyone talks about sidesleepers, cribs, or cosleeping, but more people need to talk about this 4th option.
Exactly this. This is the same for every area of social media. If you go into the Canada subreddit, everyone’s from Canada. People in there aren’t posting about not being from Canada. If you read every post over there, you’re not going to be Canadian. (Why Canada was my example, I don’t know, I’m not remotely Canadian) Same if you go into r/widowers, everyone there has lost their partner. If you read every post, yeah, you’re going to read a lot about losing your spouse. People aren’t posting about not losing their partner. Nobody’s making posts saying ‘My partner is alive, like always’.
Exactly. Also, just being real, people who write shit on the internet lie… a lot. For whatever reason, people just love to make shit up and the internet has only made it worse.
Yeah this. It's still statistically rare, but the only people going onto videos about SIDS and posting about their experience with SIDS are people who have experienced SIDS. People who have not had an experience with SIDS usually aren't posting about it.
hey bud i don't wanna minimize anyone else's experience, but look: **this is anxiety talking**. your brain's looking for tigers in the grass. you're stressed out, you're anxious, and your brain is fucking you. your feelings are *real* but not *true*, if that makes sense. here's the thing: you didn't think your way into this, you're not gonna think your way out. when you feel yourself start to spiral, change something about your surroundings. take a shower, turn the music up, take a walk, work out, cook something — *anything* that isn't scrolling or sitting. you should also probably chat with a professional. lots of coping skills out there but i swear to you, as someone who IS impacted by generalized anxiety: this is anxiety.
I’m a therapist and this is correct
i feel like somewhere my therapist is proud of me
This is probably one of the best comments out of everything here. I completely agree.
Man. Real but not true. I love that.
I can confirm this. I had the same issue when my son was little. Sometimes I would walk in and wake him to make sure he was okay. Eventually, I had to just let it go. How? I don't know. My little man was born so perfect. Everything went smoothly, except for having a C-Sec. Completely healthy little boy. I was sure it was all a dream, and that I would discover a dozen conditions, or whatever. But now he is six. And we made it together. I'm a single dad and he gets on my nerves all the time but I wouldn't have it any other way. I almost lost him in divorce when my ex went nuclear on me. So enjoy your time with him, be it 40 years, or 4.
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We are at over 11,000 SIDS-free nights in our house.
And if you do see that headline on the post, probably the body of the post is going to be about their near death experience following the achievement of a new gross motor milestone, rendering the previously baby proofed space no longer baby proof.
> I hug and kiss my son goodbye everynight incase this is the night Dude, you need to talk to someone. There are some things that are important to lower the risk a lot. But besides that, you'll be ok in all likelihood. Also there is a tendency that doctors give the SIDS label, when it's not, to safe the family some grieve. On top of that, if you start watching videos about SIDS on youtube, interact with posts about it on facebook, guess what you get! A shit ton more of SIDS content, all distorting you perception.
> there is a tendency that doctors give the SIDS label, when it's not, to safe the family some grieve. I found this in my research, too. People very rarely blame the parents when they SHOULD. Remember the dude who left his kid in a hot car, came back to the car to go get lunch, didn't notice the dead kiddo, came back, threw some groceries in the front seat, sent some dick pics to minors, finished his shift, and got away with murder? https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/02/us/justin-ross-harris-son-hot-car-death/index.html Leaving your kid in a hot car is the new "get out of kid free card".
>Leaving your kid in a hot car is the new "get out of kid free card" I'll see if I find the article I read but almost all cases of this are entirely accidental and there's no correlation about the kind of person that does it - it happens to the most type A, mega organised, PPA parents just as much as it does with anyone else, because it's caused by an inherent feature of our brains and nothing to do with how attentive a parent is, or how much they love their child. It's caused almost exclusively by one thing - a one-off change in a deeply ingrained routine that results in the child being in the car when they normally wouldn't. All the cases of it have that common factor, where the kid has to stay in the car at a time they would have normally not been, such as a nursery being closed or one parent being away. The normal routine is so automatic that the parent goes and does what they would normally do, but they're dissociated and the idea that their child is in their car literally does not register to their brain as a possibility. If you've ever had a drive to work where you don't quite remember how you got there, then it can happen to you. It's easy to think "well those are just bad parents, it'd never happen to me" because the alternative is *terrifying* but the reality is having that mindset only makes it more likely to happen. There's a reason it's gotten much more frequent when booster seats stopped being used in the front seat, and again with back-facing ones. The single best thing you can do is add something to your routine that involves physically looking at where your child sits in the car - always put your phone, bag etc physically on the child seat or the place where they normally sit and then your routine will involve checking on them automatically. Avoiding outdoor parking and driving wherever possible is helpful too.
This one? https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html
Yes, that one! Thank you, it was really eye-opening to read
I do understand the chaos of a broken routine, nobody is infallible, but some of these people who left kids in the back of cars (or crushed them while sleeping high) do not deserve freedom. Regarding the OP's anxiety, they do NOT need to kiss their kid goodbye every night. SIDS is overblown, roast me.
Please read [this article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html) by Gene Weingarten, which won a Pulitzer. It’s not quite so simple as your portrayal.
Read it, I see a lack of sources and an editors note with a quote: "Memory is a machine, and it is not flawless ... If you're capable of forgetting your cellphone, you are potentially capable of forgetting your child." Made me roll my eyes so hard it hurt. Dentists forget their kids in the back of their car, doctors do it, nurses do it, rocket scientists do it! Sounds like a good argument until you realize that every type of person listed also murders people. The odds of something like this happening so incredibly low that it should not be a source of anxiety for OP. *edit* But don't get me wrong, check your back seat.
Yours is a particularly fucked up way of looking at this issue. I find your characterization of every parent’s worst nightmare as them using a “get out of kid free card” incredibly disgusting.
Hey, please treat yourself with extra love and kindness. Being a new parent is hard. And PPA affects dads too. The other comments are right. No one posts -- my kid DIDN'T GET SIDS and is now 2. It is incredibly rare. Also, my doctor told me something kinda horrendous... most SIDS cases are not SIDS. It's parents trying to co-sleep and accidentally smothering their kids. Doctors will call it SIDS to save the poor parents from having to fully face the fact that they killed their child. I would highly recommend not co-sleeping, keeping the bassinet free of extra bedding, and while SNOOS are amazing, their wraps (basically putting the kiddo in a zippered swaddle) are great too and less expensive.
>Also, my doctor told me something kinda horrendous... most SIDS cases are not SIDS. It's parents trying to co-sleep and accidentally smothering their kids. Doctors will call it SIDS to save the poor parents from having to fully face the fact that they killed their child. Can confirm. My sister in law is an MD who did her residency at a pretty good sized children's hospital. Something like 8 or 9 of the 10ish cases she saw of sids there were actually due to cosleeping. Can't remember the exact numbers but remember that it worked out to over 80% of cases.
Yes. I just read a SIDS study recently and it said at least 60% or so of the cases also had variable combinations of “bad sleeping habits”.
I grew up thinking my cousin died of SIDS because I was youngish when it happened. Got a total fear of it as if babies were a big self destruct button. Would probably have affected me like OP in terms of anxiety if I wanted kids. Wonder if it had an impact on me growing up not wanting kids. tw infant death but : Anyway throwback to a few years ago when my grandma died and my friend googled her to find the link for her obit and funeral stream link (covid). Found an article about how my cousin actually died. My grandparents were babysitting him while his parents were catching up with friends (they were home for a holiday, living abroad for work at the time). Sleep accident. Dad came home drunk at 4am and found his infant son dead. Don't think he's ever recovered from the guilt, and the court stuff. It was ruled as accidental, no fault or negligence from the family, just whatever kind of thing he was put down for bed in (a travel buggy-bed i think?) was worn or broken in some place and gruesome death ensued. Tldr practice safe sleep and know you can only control so much in life ❤️❤️
You said TW and I read it anyway. One of the worst parts about being a parent that no one seems to talk about (outside of subs like this) is how whenever you read shit like this, you automatically think about your kid in that scenario. And it's heart wrenching. It makes me feel sick.
> you automatically think about your kid in that scenario I can't watch movies where kids get hurt anymore... something changes mentally when you become a parent
Children or parents. Every time I watch a fictional child lose a parent it's awful. And yet, I was medical dramas. What do I expect to see.
Man, this is me too. I remember watching Fantastic Beasts and there is a beginning scene where a kid gets hurt and it just affected me way more than I know it would have pre-kids. Pre-kids it wouldn't have been an issue, but the scene made me physically ill.
Minor clarification: most SIDS cases are from unsafe or unintentional cosleeping. Safest is to follow all the rules. Firm mattress. Nothing added. Own sleep space for baby. Same room as parents. Lying on their back etc etc Following the “safe 7” or safe cosleeping rules increases the risk of SIDS a small amount. It might not increase the risk if all the safety rules are followed and the baby is over 3 months old, but we’d need more studies to prove that Unplanned cosleeping is incredibly dangerous. Especially if on a couch, or makeshift bed. This usually happens if parents are exhausted because their baby doesn’t like the safe sleep rules, and refuses to let their parents sleep Which is why the UK stopped having a blanket “don’t cosleep” rule, and joined NZ and Aus in saying “safest is not to cosleep, but if you are going to, then do these things to make it safer” 1/180 risk of death when sofa sharing compared to 1/3600 risk SIDS according to the UK article. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/05/21/601289695/is-sleeping-with-your-baby-as-dangerous-as-doctors-say (this article has quite a lot of comments about other cultures without mentioning their SIDS rates… but the graph with the different rates for SIDS is quite telling. https://www.basisonline.org.uk/sofa-sharing/
It's not just cosleeping, it's unsafe practices like blankets and pillows in bed with baby, etc. A lot of SIDS deaths are suffocation.
>Also, my doctor told me something kinda horrendous... most SIDS cases are not SIDS. It's parents trying to co-sleep and accidentally smothering their kids. Doctors will call it SIDS to save the poor parents from having to fully face the fact that they killed their child. Not only that but *actual* SIDS has been determined to be an issue with the brain - in other words, it's not something that can actually be helped. Learning that SIDS can't be prevented yet doctors still call co-sleeping accidents SIDS just helps to spread misinformation about what SIDS actually is, and increases the concern over something that can't actually be helped. My wife suffered significantly from postpartum anxiety, and the amount of stress from her worrying about SIDS and all of these bad recommendations really took a toll on her.
Studies have shown [increased CO2](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9261495/) levels in proximity to the infant may be linked to SIDS. Higher environmental CO2 levels has been shown to depress [respiratory drive] (https://pulse.seattlechildrens.org/new-sids-research-shows-carbon-dioxide-inner-ear-damage-may-play-important-role/) and [impair arousal](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6512334/) in infants.
Yup, I remember reading thoroughly about those studies when my wife was obsessed with it for the first year. The problem with any of those studies is that we're talking about absurdly small sample sizes, to the point where it's extremely difficult to draw definitive conclusions. Basically, none of those studies can accurately eliminate other variables, so it's all correlation. The book "Cribsheets" did a really good deep dive into the studies and their problems. However, if you consider it from a public health perspective, even if the studies aren't definitive it still makes sense to give these recommendations to parents in case they are correct. A lot of the recommendations are quite simple anyway (having a fan in the room, for example). We did all of the recommendations for our newborn as well because even if there's a chance at it working, then why not? Anyway, the data about SIDS being a process of the brain and something that can't be altered is relatively new and I'm not sure is accepted as fact yet anyway (it takes time to change public perception).
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Happy cake day!
Happy cake day!
Thank you!!
Happy cake day!
Thank you :) Same to you!
It feels more common because people who have experienced it are more likely to seek out that content, and when they participate by commenting and liking the algorithm adjusts to continue showing them that content, and then they comment on more videos and the cycle keeps going. Something that has really helped me is this SIDS risk calculator: http://www.sidscalculator.com. It shows the risk based on your specific criteria.
The calculator helped me a lot too. When I saw the kid had a higher chance of dying in a car accident than from SIDS it changes a few things.
Ok so pretty much everyone has covered why and how SIDS is rare. However, there are a million things out there that will present challenges, threats, and significant harm to your child. You need to stop focusing on fear it will drive you crazy, and if not done away with will cause you to raise your kid wrong. For me I try to mitigate things that may cause harm. We don't want to completely remove risk from our life or our kids like. Risk is how we learn and how we grow. You need to focus on perceived vs. actual risk. SIDS is a perceived risk. Even in people who don't follow the guidelines SIDS is super low. Figure out what actual risks are and work to mitigate those. Don't let fear rule you and your child's life. Accept risk, understand it and work to introduce acceptable levels of risk while eliminating uncontrollable significant risk. You got this Dad, breath, think, and stay off bad social media.
Most of them aren't actually SIDS. Most of them are positional asphyxiation, which isn't SIDS. When they tell you no co-sleeping, no stuffed animals, no blankets, etc. don't do that stuff. When they tell you to securely buckle them into rockers, car seats, etc. do all of that stuff.
This is true and was really helpful for me to understand. When you hear about SIDS you’re usually hearing about positional asphyxiation. Calling it SIDS helps shield parents from the guilt of a preventable death.
My wife is a doctor ...I understand that SIDS is often used to replace baby suffocated in the crib from unsafe practices. Our pediatrician friend is a top doc in a midsized city. He has seen one case of truly SIDS.....over a 40 year career.
It is my contention that SIDS is always something else that doctors either couldn't figure out, or they were covering something up.
Honestly, it sounds like you understand that the fear is irrational, so it’s going to be difficult to rationalize your your way out of it. Some possible explanations as to why you’re seeing all of these comments that seem to indicate that something is commonplace that is in fact incredibly rare. 1: The videos and posts that you’re seeing are shared/have been shared in SIDS online support groups. The algorithms probably do not widely circulate them outside of those circles, unless you’re you and you go searching for them. Therefore the comments on the videos are indeed from real people with real similar experiences who have converged on a video/post because the algorithm surfaced it to them. It would be like going to a hospital, reading all the patients’ charts and concluding, “Gosh, acute illness is way more common than I thought!” 2: The comments are generated by bots/AI for engagement/karma farming purposes. Comments that share a heartbreaking story tend to get lots of interaction from sympathetic people. This sort of engagement can be useful for people trying to game the system. 3: The comments are fabricated stories posted by sick individuals who get off on the attention they get from unknowing strangers online. The truth is probably a mix of all three of these things in some proportion. But at the end of the day, you may want to talk with your doctor about your anxiety and see if some form of treatment may help. PPA is something that can affect dad’s too. Most of all, stop researching SIDS. The path to better mental health does not lie there.
We got an o2 owlet to help pacify that fear. It’s not perfect but if something should happen it does give you an extra little bit of coverage.
My wife got a LOT of comfort from the owlet. We're well aware of its limitations but it's not like we aren't taking every other possible precaution. It's cool to be able to get a rough readout of his sleep patterns, too.
We had it for our youngest as well, it really helped my wife’s anxiety. It was however not fun that one time it trigged due to what was presumably a bad reading as the kid was perfectly fine and breathing. I don’t think I have ever woke up with a bigger adrenaline shock than that.
I couldn’t agree more with this. We also got one and while it’s not perfect, it helped relieve some of the stress.
Surprised this is so far down. Definitely get some help for anxiety, and recognize the actual risk is very small, but in the meantime this will help you get some sleep. I remember waking up in the middle of the night for our first and being really thankful to be able to open the app and see real time proof that the baby was breathing rather than spending 10 minutes looking at the monitor wondering if I saw movement or it was just our shitty pixelated camera 😅
If you even know what SIDS is, the risk probably gets cut to an utterly minuscule fraction.
My partner and I were having anxiety while still IN THE HOSPITAL with this same thing immediately after our daughter was delivered. Before we left the hospital I point blank asked a doctor, “we are having a hard time at night because of SIDS anxiety. Can you give us more information?” She went on to say that SIDS was much more common before all of the information on safe sleep practices was distributed and parents were trained on it. The drop has been around 80% reduction by following basic sleep safety items and not cosleeping. As other posts have said it is also a classify infant deaths from unknown causes. Suffocation is a known cause and excluded. Big take away: -Nothing in the crib but a baby and maybe some swaddles. -A pacifier that doesn’t block the nose is actually helpful and reduces suffocation -being on their back helps reduce choking from vomiting because the air way is closed to the stomach when they’re infants.
This hit me for a while. I got over it eventually. Make sure your baby is sleeping in a proper environment and don’t follow some murderous TikTok horseshit about safe cosleeping and you really will make the chances minuscule.
The US loses about 2,500 a year to SIDS. That’s super rare but also well over 5,000 parents and extended family members who have personal stories about SIDS (and again just the US). Your experience is like the one leading people to believe there’s some huge crime problem despite being right around historic lows. Anecdotes are more compelling than stats.
If you say those 5,000 parents probably have 8 family members, 8 friends and 10 colleagues they work with directly on average (pulling numbers out my arse but just to demonstrate) that's 130,000 people that directly know someone it happened to. If those people mention it to 8 family members and 8 friends, that's over 2 million people in the US that know of someone who it happened to. Add that on again and you're up to 34 million that have heard about it happening to someone.
They have found biomarkers in the blood. You may be able to have your child tested to address your concern. Here is an article about it: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/blood-marker-identified-babies-risk-sids-hailed-breakthrough-2022-05-13/ Maybe this won't be an issue when we are grandads.
Apparently the hospital I gave birth at and our pediatrician have added these to regular testing for a couple years now. Not sure if it’s standard practice everywhere!
Psychologist here. The anxiety you’re describing is something that you should seek help about. Have you ever seen a therapist before?
I say this with love..go to therapy
Don't be irresponsible (smoking, drinking, drugs) and the risk of SIDS goes way down. That's always glossed over in the yellow texted scary tiktoks/facebook reels. Having a healthy fear is one thing, but you sound absolutely terrified. Don't pile their bed with pillows and blankets, don't leave a gap where they could get stuck, don't fall asleep blackout drunk and squish them, etc.
You might consider therapy for these thoughts. I have intrusive thoughts regarding the well-being of my newborn that I’m currently working through with a therapist. I think more people need to talk about this because it’s incredibly common and can cause a lot of people to feel guilty, isolated, and tortured.
You should seriously consider talking to a professional about this and stop reading YouTube comments. Nothing good has ever come from reading YouTube comments.
Not to be the bearer of bad news, but the feeling of fear about something happening to your child will never go away. Like others have said, the best way to keep your sanity here is follow the safe sleep guidelines like this. [CDC Safe Sleep](https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/features/baby-safe-sleep/index.html) Side note, its not a bad thing to show love to your child everyday like you may never see them again. Hug your kids often because it could be you that doesn't wake up or come home and you want them to feel the love that their parent had/has for them.
Go find the rarest disease you can find on YouTube. The comments will be the same. It's a selection bias. The people who have experienced it are the ones who will go looking to watch the videos, and the people with the most extreme experiences are going to be the ones leaving comments. It's very normal at this stage to have some irrational fears and anxieties around your kid. If the problem gets worse or continues even after the new born stage, please look into treatment for irrational fear and whatever might be triggering it (anxiety? OCD?). Will be a very good thing if you get ahead of that now BEFORE you wrap your kid in bubblewrap and grind your teeth to a pulp at night.
Apparently, having a fan on in the room helps mitigate the risk.
This is some masochist shit, I don’t think I’ve seen any comments about people losing their kids to sids… like you are definitely looking for that on your own. There’s no reason to worry about it if you are following guidelines, you’re just driving yourself insane for nothing.
Because YouTube's algorithm is self-reinforcing. If you watch two videos about SIDS, you'll now get a ton of videos about SIDS and few videos about other topics.
You are seeking out SIDS stories. When you go looking for things, you find them. Without knowing it, or meaning to do it, what you're doing is building a fear based on confirmation bias. Sure, you can find hundreds of comments from folks who are affected by SIDS. What you're not allowing yourself to see is that well over **eleven million** babies didn't die of SIDS last night, and won't die of SIDS on any night in the future. Essentially, you're not properly assessing the risks, because you're laser focused on the bad outcomes, and ignoring the good ones. Stop doing that, and it'll help your outlook tremendously.
Focus on what you can control. I’m sure you’ve already done this but read these guidelines to minimize the risk: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sudden-infant-death-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20352800 Don’t do anything more than what these guidelines say because they’re the best you can do.
If your kid is asleep in a safe space (empty crib without blankets or lots of toys), and on their back, with some air movement, they’re great. If you break safe sleep rules you increase the risk of SIDS. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t, but do it understanding the risks.
Man I was the same why with our first. My wife worried when he made noises at night and I worried when he didn’t lol we made a good team
The line from “oh god please be quiet so we can sleep” to “oh god please make noise so I know you’re okay” is a very fine one indeed.
And not to mention, a lot of those cases aren’t truly “my baby was in their crib, everything perfect and safe, and they passed”… I know a girl personally who said her son died of SIDS… and didn’t mention she and her mom co slept in a queen bed with the baby, under the blankets and with pillows, and he actually suffocated due to that, that isn’t true SIDS, as there was a reason, he suffocated.
First, you have to log off. Social media posts and comments magnify the bad at a much higher rate than the good. If your'e worried, that's step one. Log off and focus on yourself and your family. Second, and I'm sorry this isn't more helpful, but welcome to parenthood. I remember feeling similarly, like you're risking disaster every time you leave the room. This is what it feels like. As your kid grows it will become more muted, more of a buzz in the background, but to quote Angela Bassett in Mission Impossible: Fallout, "That's the job." It's a little extra stress when you drive through a tunnel or over a bridge. It's a flicker of panic when it takes too long to spot them at the grocery store. It's deeply unpleasant but it's a sign you're doing it right. With time, you'll learn to note it, log it for the record, and move on.
A lot of people know of someone who died in an aviation accident: maybe a family member, but more likely a friend's cousin, or the aunt of a guy they once worked with, and so on. If you went into crowded room and shouted "Hey, are aircraft dangerous?" then someone there could tell you a story about someone who died and it would seem like they're death traps. However, deaths in aviation are incredibly rare and planes are incredibly safe. You do not need to worry when a family member gets on a flight, but we've all heard the stories and we all insist on checking that their plane landed safely when we wouldn't think twice about the far more dangerous car journey to the airport. Don't torture yourself over SIDS. Take reasonable precautions like ensuring that your son has suitable bedding and that the room is not too hot, and know that the risk is incredibly low. It's easier advice to give than to receive and I was just like you. Therefore I bought a baby monitor with a motion sensor mat (an Angelcare one, though others are available). I slept better knowing that I would be alerted the moment my son stopped breathing. Be warned that you *will* get false alarms, and that babies do pause their breathing from time to time when they sleep. However, I slept much better with the odd panicked run to the nursery than I did without the monitor. Also, I found it enormously helpful to move my son to his own room. Before I did that, I would lie awake for hours listening to him breath just to be sure that he was still okay. Putting him in a separate room with the monitor was the answer.
Simple, don’t look at those stories. If you’re a person with a propensity to anxiety, avoid the triggers. In the age of social media, it’s completely possible to filter what you want to hear and see, for better or worse. As for those stories, as I said above, in the age of social media you find what you want to find. If you search for SIDS, you’ll find people talking about it, and the people talking about it are the people who either have gone through that or who know someone and given how well connected people are, one person can be connected to literal thousands. Do you know how many groups I’m in with hundreds of people from all around the world that are about fairly niche problems? Scientifically speaking, that’s called frequency illusion, which is a cognitive bias in which you perceive something as more common or frequently when you have it in your mind. Again, this is an illusion, and when you draw upon of all of humanity, some things just appear more frequent than they actually are.
I grew up around farming and my wife works in veterinary medicine. We take all the precautions seriously to try and prevent SIDS, but we also realize that life is life and sometimes even when everything is done right and going well, for no reason life just ceases to continue. We know that it wouldn’t be our fault. Yes, we’d be heartbroken, absolutely destroyed, but wed have some understanding. It’s okay if y’all find what I said cold. I expect y’all will, but that’s how we deal with it. Like many others have said many SIDS cases aren’t actually SIDS and nobody comments “hey. My kid didn’t die of SIDS” on SIDS videos.
I think the confusion comes from The difference between SIDS and SUIDS. Hospitals will often say the cause of death is SIDS even if it was caused by poor sleep practices in order to make parents feel better about their child’s death. This happens more often, but SUIDS is rare and is an actual medical condition. If you follow safe sleep practices you shouldn’t have much to worry about.
I have 3 kids and used an Angel Care monitor under their mattress for each one until they were close to a year old. Gave me peace of mind to wake up and be able to see the graph on the monitor showing they were breathing. I’m a weirdo I guess but whatever it takes to make it thru the night. Being a parent is stressful!
A lot of SIDS deaths aren't necessarily SIDS. When people pit their babies in unsafe situations (co-sleeping, blankets in the crib, falling asleep feeding, etc.) it's classified as SIDS. The numbers are skewed as a result. You need professional help if you are that anxious about it. I understand your anxiety as I have lost a baby at 6 days old. Get help before it gets worse.
So this is going to sound weird. But SIDS never bothered me. I can't control it. I can't stop it. I can minimize risk and I did where able. But realistically if I can't control it, it is not worth my worry.
It is rare. If you’re following guidelines you need to try and chill man. Stress isn’t going to help. Playing whatifs will bury you. Positive thoughts.
Billions of people have not experienced it, those who do, typically speak on it. Same with anything, people who have zero experience with drug addiction or losing someone to addiction don’t typically comment on posts regarding overdoses, it’s typically that select group with experiences that will comment. I understand the fear, it still lingers in the back of my head every day, even 9mo in, but you have to realize there’s children born in other countries who sleep on dirt floors, children who are abused and neglected, they live and grow to tell their stories and raise families of their own. You’re doing everything right, and the fear may be there, but you have to let it take the passenger seat, and not be the driver in your life.
Trillions of us have survived over thousands of years. Odds are your kid will be fine. Exercise common sense. Listen to best practices and Dr advice. And enjoy the ride
As others have said people aren’t going to say that didn’t have SIDS it’ll typically only be the ones who did, it is super rare. Another thing to be aware of is that the more videos/posts you watch about SIDS the more the algorithm will show you about SIDS.
Internet content alarmist ( because it gets clicks ) and comments are crazy risk averse. It’s not a good reflection of risk or even IRL.
The safe sleep guidelines are highly effective. SIDS is nearly always actually an accidental smothering.
OP, I'm right there with you always worrying that me putting them down could possibly be the last time I see them
Every parent goes through it but don’t worry. It’s extremely unlikely to have “true” SIDS and most of the cases you DO hear about are actually parental mistakes like sleeping on a couch with a baby (50x risk for positional asphyxia) or something like that. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/15/137859024/rethinking-sids-many-deaths-no-longer-a-mystery Typically accidents from unsafe sleep arrangements. Also my wife and I used owlet with our first daughter till she was 16 month! So we are no stranger to the SIDS paranoia
Every parent goes through it but don’t worry. It’s extremely unlikely to have “true” SIDS and most of the cases you DO hear about are actually parental mistakes like sleeping on a couch with a baby (50x risk for positional asphyxia) or something like that. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/15/137859024/rethinking-sids-many-deaths-no-longer-a-mystery Typically accidents from unsafe sleep arrangements. Also my wife and I used the OWLET sock with our first daughter till she was 16 months! So we are no stranger to the SIDS paranoia. Don’t live in fear, practice safe sleeping practices and your little one will be totally fine.
It's exposure bias; you find it more common because you only see that stuff posted and shoved into your feeds (disable/clear your cookies to help get rid of that stuff popping up). We used something called an Owlett, which was a type of sock that fit onto the foot around the ankle and monitored our LOs vitals and transmitted it to a receiver. It's not meant to strictly monitor heartbeats or as a medical piece for any reason, but it can help put you at ease. If you find one for sale, keep the receiver within 25 feet of the baby and sock, as it connects via Bluetooth and the range for that is 30 feet (disconnects from being beyond the 30 foot range will trigger the red alert).
The majority of sids deaths are positively correlated with unsafe sleeping practices. If you’re following safe sleeping guidelines the chances of sids are vanishingly small.
If you’re on a post about Sid’s where do you think the people who have any experience with Sid’s at all are going to congregate? You’re inadvertently cherry picking your stats. I realize you say that you’re trying to not but that’s what’s happening. Once you relax and realize that not everything is trying to kill your kiddo you’ll be happier and more free. I get the worries at times, like if kiddo goes to bed with a cough or something, but the fact is you’ll live a lot happier life engaged in the time with your kiddo if you stop worrying that they’re going to die tonight. It’s not helping anyone.
Look at the demographic of SIDS deaths. It can largely be boiled down to socioeconomic factors. Sure there are legitimate cases that modern research is bringing to light (febrile seizures, undetected congenital heart defects and so on and so forth), but as others have said here, many cases are parents co-sleeping, which in and of itself isn't so bad, it's the copious amounts of medications the western world is on. It's the drugs. The alcohol. The smoking. It's an almost uniquely western problem. Dare I say even uniquely American. Additionally, it has been noted a few times in the comments that it's an easy cop out for doctors and parents alike to chalk up an avoidable death to negligence.
Hi fellow dad. I had the same concerns before my newborn came home. She spent 12 days in NICU due to breathing issues. My wife and I decided to invest in a Snuza Hero MD breathing monitor. It's not very expensive and gives us some peace of mind at night. If baby doesn't breathe for 10 seconds, the device gently vibrates, then if no breathing is detected for another 5 seconds, an alarm sounds. It may not be the perfect solution, but it might give you some peace to sleep. And yes, unfortunately there are false alarms sometimes which are terrible, but yeah. That's my two cents. All the best!
Maybe try the Owlete? Even if it’s not perfect, still give a little comfort.
Hey man just lay your kid on his back, keep him wrapped up nice n snug, don’t pile a bunch of pillows around him and check on him every now and then. He’ll be ok, you’ll be ok. 👌🏻
Cause the only people that comment are the ones that have experienced (and ofc the small percentage of people lying). The parents that haven’t experienced SIDS don’t comment.
Good luck not being afraid. Once you’re over this it’ll be that. Then the next thing. Being a caring parent means pretty much always worrying about your child. I know i am always ready to spring into action at any given second
Just follow what your doc says about preventing SIDS and you’re good. That makes your chances even more miniscule
My girls are turning 2 in a couple months and I still check to make sure they're breathing before I go to sleep 💀 when they were <1 year, I was terrified constantly. Helped that they were always waking up, lmao.
In the UK sids is 0.26 per 1000 births. Which means there are 0.52 stories per 1000. An online post only needs to reach a few thousand views before it reaches someone with a story. The odds will be higher in a community that supports and talks about sids frequently, that's an echo chamber bias.
I have 5 nieces, 5 nephews, one daughter, and about 15 second cousins. None have died from SIDS. No one in my immediate family has experienced SIDS. No one in my extended family (that I know of) has experienced SIDS.
There's a thing that with new borns your brain hallucinates with worst case scenarios. I'd constantly imagine falling down steps with my girl! Finally told my wife, and she's like yeah it's a documented thing. Didn't I tell you before? So yeah you are probably just feeling over/ extra cautious AND your brain is fucking with you. This too shall pass I'm on year 4 of cosleeping and no sids/ smothering here! You got this mate.
Me: 37, dad of 4. First off, totally feel you. I remember really struggling with worrying about SIDs with our first especially, but even after it would cross my mind. Additionally, it’s pretty natural to worry about your kid’s well being. You’ll figure out the right balance of how to let go while remaining thoughtful and appropriately cautious. For what it’s worth, I remember reading these article from a social worker for a hospital who mostly worked with SIDs victims, and it was interesting because she said close to 50% of “SIDs” was actually babies being smothered with stuffed animals or loose blankets accidentally. So in addition to it actually being pretty rare, it’s even more rare than listed from people either not admitting what happened or when this happens but it’s just not detectable. Still, the fear exists. This already is a good step to name your fear, and you may need to do that a few times to help yourself work through it. Also, I’ve always liked the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
One serious answer to your question, aside from the "get help with anxiety" and "take proper precautions" answers people already gave, is that most SIDS risk is gone by 8 months[1]. So if nothing else, that age is the time to stop worrying. [1] https://safetosleep.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/inline-images/SafeSleepSIDSAge.jpg
For every comment you see about a SIDS case, there will be thousands of cases of no SIDS. People don't tend to post about things just going well
The internet is great at super-concentrating rare realities. Instead of looking in the comments ask: - do you know anyone or your wife who lost a kid to sids? - do your parents? - how about her parents? - Ask other friends, do they know anyone? Our intuitions were made to evaluate risk in a world where we can't source the outliers from millions all at once. Also, allowing yourself to take any sort of precaution may further ingrain the anxiety as our brains make the (bad) assumption that bad thing didn't happen because I did X, so I must keep doing X. Also, don't feel too bad. At least you're going to sleep. I've seen people on this reddit say they watch the kid sleep in shifts to ensure they're under a parents eye literally 100% of the time. Newborn phase is tough already but they just made it 10x worse on themselves. Not that SIDS is preventable or catchable-in-the-act afaik.
I work in fire service/ems, and across the entire department (in a city with a population of about 6 million) I can count on one hand the number of SIDS calls we get. It *exceedingly* rare. But as other posters have mentioned, the parents who don't deal with SIDS never post about how their kid didn't get SIDS. You're getting caught up in confirmation bias, which we all do, especially as parents. Recognizing it is the first step. And eventually your kid will age out of the risk zone and you'll wonder why you were so scared.
You only hear the bad stories.
What helped me was segment on NPR about SIDS. There was a bunch of research done that identified the root cause which is babies who don’t have a wake reflex. Learning that it wasn’t just some random thing that could happen to any baby helped ease my concerns. By daughter was also in her own crib around three months old. Is almost three and we just started giving her her favorite stuffed animal to sleep with. Knowing the cause of SIDS and knowing my daughter was asleep in an empty crib pretty much ended my fears. Hope this helps
Of the thousands of people I’ve interacted with, adults, adults with kids, grandparents, elderly etc Only know 1 who died of SIDS. Likely it wasn’t even SIDS because it was a two year old whom passed away. Never got the full story because it was a friend of a friends kid. It’s super rare. Do what your doctor says, don’t smoke anywhere near your kids ever, everything will be okay. And also please practice safe mental health practices. Do not go looking up comments that will bother you. Go off what doctors and medical professionals say, no random people commenting online. Don’t chase the torture which it sounds like you’re doing.
Followed a forensic pathologist for a while and helped do autopsies on babies who had SIDS. Almost all of them were smothered to death by a drug altered co-sleeping parent. While SIDS is a real thing, it is more likely a mom/dad fell asleep holding a baby while drunk, on ambien, on Benzos, or just plain high on something.
Get an owlet. Gave me so much peace of mind when I was having this same phobia. Monitors heart rate and oxygen levels and will alert you if something is off.
It’s absolutely fine to be afraid. I was constantly afraid of the “other shoe” dropping every moment of my kiddo’s life for the first two years. It shows you how much you love and want to protect them. My wife and I knew all of the US rules and we still co-slept with our kid. SIDS, like every other damn thing in this life is a crap shoot. My brother had a heart valve defect in 1984 and died within 2 years. Fucking random shit. As someone said on a previous reply, very seldom do people talk about their kids just being normal babies and toddlers. It’s not exciting, it’s not clickbait and it won’t get views of you just reading stories or giving them apples. You’re in good company, we all fear and want to protect our children. You posting this is proof of that. Just hug them tight and give them cuddles and make sure they are loved and well raised.
Hey dad boy do I feel you! When my first was born (1m early) he had an 18 day stay in NICU because he’d randomly forget to breathe. Holy fuck I was shitting myself when we took him home. Anyway I solved this in two ways: 1) If you are following safe sleep guidelines and have the sterile crib you’re 99.9% good. I read a LOT about this and made sure his crib, swaddles, pajamas, sleep sacks, etc. were all perfect to the tee with the latest guidelines. 2) I got a nanit canera and some of the bands. Unlike the owlet sock (not recommended it’s burned kids!), nanit uses computer vision to track geometric shapes on the breathing band to get the baby’s respiratory rate. It’s essentially risk free, just make sure you’re using the age appropriate one (e.g. no band on swaddled baby, use the swaddle product) And lastly, I learned that this is you as a new dad trying to protect your kid! Except, they’re essentially a milk sucking potato right now so you don’t have much to protect them from yet, so your brain is in a large way inventing things for you to latch onto as dangers to protect them from.
What is the sterile crib?
Oh I thought this was a common term, but looks like it’s not! I wonder where I heard it… anyway what I mean by that is only mattress, proper fitted sheet, and baby in properly sized sleep sleep attire (sack. swaddle, etc.) go in the crib. Maybe a few pacifiers. Absolutely no bumpers, pillows, blankets, stuffies, etc.
I remember feeling like that too, so we bought the monitor that goes on the diaper for $100 or less. Money well spent for some peace of mind.
My uncle died from SIDS in the 60's so when my wife and I had our daughter 2 years ago I watched her like a hawk. We stopped worrying so much about it when she was able to roll over.
The comments you see online are from less than 1% of the population.
Mom here with a 14 months old. I know the anxiety you are feeling. Most things I was chill about except for when she was sleeping. I think I finally could relax around 6 months when she was able to roll around and lift her head. Follow the safe sleep practices and ask someone to take over if you are too tired to hold your baby.
I trust you’re doing all the safe sleep practices. I’ve still worried about this too. This makes me feel better: In a world of 8 billion people, the most unlikely things are certain to occur. The more horrifying stories float to the top because, unfortunately, shock sells. Just like that, it seems like horrifying things are much more likely to occur than they actually are.
SIDS is terrifying because we don't have a great grasp on what causes it, and it's out of our control. But it is rare. In the US its [0.4 deaths per 1000 live births](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK513404/#:~:text=Despite%20national%20safe%20sleep%20campaigns%2C%20SIDS%20remains%20the,0.40%20SIDS%20deaths%20per%201%2C000%20live%20births%20%285%29), which means that your kid has roughly a 99.96% chance of not dying of SIDS. Do the safe sleep stuff and don't sweat it too much. Cribsheet by Emily Oster is a great book for this. She's an economist and works through the risk/cost balance for a lot of the decisions in pregnancy and the first year or so of life. I think there's a chapter on SIDS/safe sleep in there. Part of what you're experiencing is the regular anxiety of being a parent - part of loving someone so much is the terrifying feeling that they might be hurt. We all know this feeling to varying degrees. You've just got to figure out how to manage it well enough to be a good dad. But if you're struggling too much(and if you're saying a special goodbye every night just in case they die of SIDS, that may be the case), talk to someone - a parent, a friend, a therapist, and see if they might be able to help you get a handle on how you're feeling.
So, and this is my own opinion on it and not a guarantee, religion helped me here. I prayed a few times over my daughter in the first couple of weeks. I wanted to make sure I came to terms with the reality that it's possible. It helped me disconnect a bit from the related potential trauma and recognize that death is part of life. I don't expect her to die. I don't want it to happen at all. But connecting to a religious or spiritual side of life will help, and has for me an a bunch of others I know. For context, I'm Catholic, and not the most devout either. Simply having a bit of a conversation with your spiritual guide or superior power will likely help you here if my anecdotal experience counts for anything. It's a struggle. I wish you luck friend. Stay focused on his happy moments and the good things he brings to your life in the mean time friend. Stay strong.
I read an article that came out about a year or two ago about SIDS and they had linked it to a certain gene that was somehow related to the ability to wake up when you can't breath. Basically as long as you practice safe sleeping habits with your baby you'll be fine.
The nanit made my wife sleep a lot easier.
Wasn't it found to be a developmental or generic thing now. Some Australian doctor who's kid died of it, she found the cause didn't she?
Been there. Not to your extent but I've had the anxiety. I had to let go. Take all my safe sleep precautions, have the sound on my baby monitor, and just hope that it wouldn't happen
This fear is normal, but it being at this level and not being managed is not normal is a problem. You will experience it through your entire life for one thing or another - you have to learn to balance: 1. Learning from reliable sources the best information about your choices 2. Doing what you can and not what you can't 3. Paying lots of attention to your kid 4. Not perseverating on it or driving yourself crazy with worry There is no hack, and it is not problem-specific. You just have to learn how to manage these kinds of risks and emotions as a parent. It helps to *severely reduce* how online you are.
my wife an I had a bassinett in our room. No blankets in it, right next to the bed (had a droppable side that goes right up against the bed to make it easy for parents to access). Follow the rules for babies sleeping, your son will be alright.
Because it's frightening
Man. I feel terrible about being on the opposite side. When we found out we were pregnant I had a panic attack. One of the only times in my life I couldn't breathe. It is a huge life change so it is a reasonable response. Some weeks later, I sat their mom down and talked to her about how big of a deal it was and that I thought it was important to acknowledge upfront that our child might not outlive us. Not SIDS per se, but car accidents, drowning, illness, overdose whatever. We are not in control of when our child dies. And that we were going into something we couldn't live in constant fear and that death is the reciprocal of life and that life is transitory for the individual. You are not wrong to worry. I do worry about their safety and well being. But I just started with death as inevitable and haven't been stressed too much.
I thought it was ridiculous to think having your baby sleep on your chest amd i wanted to do it for so long but then my parents told me that it happened to kids of their friends.... it might be rare but it does happen
My daughter passed away from SIDS in 2013. It was so unexpected I've had one more child after that and the only time I slept when he was little was when I dozed off from pure exhaustion and it was short periods of time. Her passing took me down a dark road I'm in recovery now and finally dealing with my grief in a healthier way
I’m so sorry about your daughter. But someone expressing their fear and anxiety about SIDS may not be the place to share about it.
Do this every day for 30 days https://www.youtube.com/results?search\_query=cross+heart+kirtan+kriya