maternal age related to SIDS ...why?

[mum2b09]

Iv just been reading an article on SIDS and it says that the age of amother is a factor and that mothers under the age of 25 are more likely to ave a child die of cot death.. seems abit unusual to me.

Can anyone explain why this is?

thanx

[BoysAreLikeDogs]

Can you link to the article please?

[mum2b09]

the article wasnt on the net so cant link it sorry..

[TheProvincialLady]

Mothers under 25 (as a group) would be more likely to be living in deprived circumstances, which is a risk factor for SIDS.

[mum2b09]

seems abit stupid really it was an article on the different factors that elato to cot death and how to prevent it it included the obvious factors and things like smoking and mentined mothers maternal age as a factor which i think s abit weird.. maybe its just a statistic for young teen mothers who arent as responsible maybe?

[TheProvincialLady]

I don't think it is a matter of responsibility mum2b09. Teenage mums are more likely to be living in shitty housing, have poor access to services and information about SIDS and other health issues (and the education to allow them to understand it), to not have the money to spend on the right cot/bedding, to not have a good support network that means they don't fall asleep with the baby on the sofa through sheer exhaustion, to formula feed because no one they know breast feeds and the health visitor didn't think she would be interested - etc etc etc.

[CaptainKarvol]

I've heard this before, & agree with TPL and TPT. May be best to think of it not as causation - being a young mother doesn't cause cot death - but as correlation: women who have their children young are more likely, as a group, to have a child die from SIDS.

Why this is, I don't know. I don't expect anyone does, or they would have unpicked the risk factor of maternal age and identified something more useful to tell us.

Younger mothers may behave differently to older mothers re sleeping, feeding, clothing their babies, live in different conditions - may smoke or drink or take drugs or have warmer or colder houses, or anything really, or be slightly more likely to have children who are at a biologically higher risk of SIDS. Who knows?

[mum2b09]

thanx girls that explained it abit better i was just abit worried as im only 18 myself and was worried hat my age may be a factor to SIDS although i cant imagine it would be a factor to me as i live in lovely conditions with my partner follow all the rules regarding SIDS, dont drink or smoke and am excluseively bfing

[TheProvincialLady]

Oh bless you As long as you follow the rules that is all anyone can do. And even if you met every single risk factor it would still be very unlikely that your baby would be affected. Think of how many of us gimmers were put to sleep on our tummies and had parents who smoked around us, formula fed etc - the vast majority of us survived. I am 34, my mum was 18 when she had me and smoked all through pregnancy as well as after, slept on my tummy in a 1970s cot etc....I am here to tell the tale!

[mum2b09]

haha i know im just such a worrier lol i was up last week for about 3 days straight watching dd sleep to check she was still breathing but im taking it 1 day at a time now and getting abit more sleep thankfully lol

[brettgirl2]

No evidence that breast feeding is advantageous for protecting against SIDs. It depends on the research that you read.

www.babyfriendly.org.uk/items/research_detail.asp?item=300

Also, one of the risk factors is slow weight gain. This actually frightened me when I was struggling to BF.

But seriously this is nothing at all to do with age, it is to do with circumstances.