SIDS warning
Many parents cover their babies in strollers with a blanket. Experts now warn not to do that. The air gets bad, the child gets too hot and the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) increases. The discussion whether to put a blanket over the opening of the stroller has been going on for years in Sweden. But in spite of warnings from midwives and pediatric nurses, the trend to do so has continued. Now Vi Föräldrar (a parent magazine) has written a long article about using blankets as covers for strollers. Says pediatrician Hugo Lagercrantz to the magazine: “There’s a potential risk that the child stops breathing without the parent noticing it. It can become so warm that the child might believe it is back in utero and stops breathing.”
Pediatric chief physician Helena Martin believes parents who are trying to protect their babies from light and sound while they are sleeping in the stroller are simply thinking wrong, it’s better if they oversee their baby making sure it is OK. And Bernt Alm, one of Sweden’s leading researchers in SIDS says: “I think it seems very reasonable to be cautious about too much coverage. Both the re-breathing of carbon dioxide and heat have been discussed as triggering factors for SIDS. If you cover over the stroller too much, it is precisely such an environment which can be created.”