SIDS PREVENTION: NEED FOR EVIDENCE-BASED INFORMATION

Key words: SIDS, Health promotion, Evidence based prevention, Co-sleeping

The Author analyses, on the basis of available scientific evidence, the messages conveyed to parents by a SIDS prevention campaign carried out by the Regional Health Authority in the Lombardia Region, Italy. Although the main risk factors for SIDS are correctly addressed in the information material, a few messages should be revised. Avoidance of co-sleeping, in particular, does not seem to be based on evidence. Discouraging mothers who smoke from breastfeeding is an inappropriate extension of the correct message that mothers should breastfeed and avoid smoking.The Author also questions the priority given, within the same campaign, to ECG screening, since this may divert attention from public health measures which, if effectively implemented at population level, can decrease the current SIDS incidence ( current estimates for Italy are about 0.5-0.6 per thousand) as much as 90%.