sudden infant death syndrome: risk factors and the relationship between them

Introduction infant mortality is often used as a standard measure of a population’s health. sudden infant death syndrome (sids) remains the leading cause of death between one month and one year of age. until cause of sids is unknown, the best strategy to decrease sids is programming to decrease facing with risk factors. the aim of this study was to find the sids risk factors among families during their child care in iran. the study is the first in iran to examine the risk factors of sids. material and methods in the observational cross-sectional study, 878 mother-infant pairs who visited governmental health clinics were included by convenience sampling. the inclusion criteria were: all mother-infant pairs which infants <1 year old. data was collected by face-to-face interview using a self-structured questionnaire contains: sids risk factors:1-parental related risk factors; 2- infant related risk factors; and 3- sleep environment related risk factors. chi-square, linear regression, and anova were used for analysis. results of 878 cases, 291 (33.15) % of parents were under 20 year, 310 (35.3%) of infants were 6 to 9 months and 504 (57.4%) were female. most common risk factors of sids were determined: co-sleeping (92.03%), bed sharing (49.31%), side lying position (47.49%) and non-exclusive breastfeeding (45.5%). a significant relationship was found between bed-sharing and head covering (p<0.05); bed-sharing and prone position (p<0.05); bed-sharing and breastfeeding (under 4 months) (p<0.05); mothers' age and co-sleeping (p<0.05) mothers' age and prone position (p<0.05). conclusion on the basis of this study, sids risk factors were common during child care in iran. this study showed most risk factors were associated with parental education level and maternal age. hence, with using of this study, we can prevention of sids through enhancing level of parental awareness by education. moreover, since risk factors of sids are association with each other, by controlling of each symptom can be controlling of another symptoms.