SIDS risk - midwives terrified me.

[QueQue]

I have a nearly 4 week old baby.

I've been at the doctors today with baby and mentioned all the things the midwife said were 'high risk' for SIDS. It's freaked me out a bit and given me some severe health anxieties. I suffer from anxiety anyway and it's been much worse since having a baby.

My doctor today pointed out that whilst we need to take the SIDS risk very seriously, we also need to remember that it's very, very rare. (Last year, 300 cases of SIDS were recorded of over 700,000 births).

AIBU to think that it can be detrimental to a new mother's mental health to constantly hearing about SIDS and that whilst the risks are there, they're actually very low?

I'm suffering quite badly with poor mental health, worried about PND and feel this fear of SIDS has almost solely caused this :(

The reason SIDs is so low in this country now is because of the amount of awareness there is around the factors that increase the risk, the back to back campaign etc. Knowledge is power, the more you know the more you're in control of the situation, much worse to be thirty years ago putting your baby sleep on its tummy surrounded by pillows and nylon blankets then be devastated when something happened because no one told you what you could do to minimise the risk.

I think you're right and maybe this is more a mental health problem on my part that I need to address...

So sorry you are suffering but the reason the figures are low is because of all the research on how tobprevent SIDS . if midwives didnt talk to us about it and educate us on how to kewp our babies safe rates would creep up again.

In reality the main reason for your depression is more likely to be hormones (I say that as someone still on meds for PND) and if it wasn't this it would be somsthing else you would fixate on.

I hope the doctor has offered you some help and support with your possible PND. Rest assured its normal to feel ridiculously anxious about these things in the early weeks and months and as you say the risk is actually extremely low.

Just try and focus on what the doctor said and that you know your baby and their best interests, you're in a strong position to be the best mum they could want 💐

In the nicest way possible, yabu. As a op said, knowledge has led to that reduction in sids and thank goodness. Yes it's scary and upsetting but it's keeping babies safer. You're only 4 weeks in so your hormones may not be back to normal, especially if you're bf but even if not and I think it's fab that you were able to talk to gp about your worries, that's a big step!

Oh my goodness, I was paralysed with fear about SIDS with DD1. It had a terrible impact on my mental health and anxiety and in fact my marriage. DH smokes (very little about 2/3 a day but wouldn’t give up) and I convinced myself that he was going to kill DD. I literally hated him for about 9 months.

I am now pregnant again and hoping to try and get things under control and bit more. I follow all the guidelines but already feel like making DH sleep on the sofa for a year!

I do think the current practice of new mothers being turfed out of hospital soon after giving birth has minimised the whole effect of pregnancy/childbirth/early months. It seems to make it all so simple. But it isn't.

You're exhausted, almost certainly sleep deprived, but at the same time you're programmed to be on high alert. And very often, for most of the time, you're the only one there to be on high alert.

It can be so overwhelming, trying to do your best for your baby, while your brain seems to be running at top speed and your body is crying out for sleep.

You are already doing the right things regarding SIDS. Your midwife focusing on SIDS risks could well be because of her own experiences, maybe she's dealing with a family that doesn't take SIDS risks seriously, maybe she's just had a training session focusing on SIDS risk, or it just could have been a box-ticking exercise for her. I do think that some HCPs really don't understand the effects of what they say.

If she had had any concerns about your care of your baby she'd have alerted your GP who would have approached the issue very differently from the way he/she did.

You have a point. I don't have children myself, but I do have an understanding of statistics. "High risk" does not mean that your baby is at a high risk of dying from SIDS at any given moment, in the way that we talk about having a high risk of a heart attack or stroke.

For instance, not wearing a seat belt puts you at a high risk of death or serious injuries, but only if you have a car accident. Most people, luckily, manage not to have car accidents on a regular basis, but we all wear our seat belts just in case it's our unlucky day.

The SIDS advice is mostly similar to wearing your seat belt - most babies who sleep on their tummies will not come to any harm, but a fraction may. The trouble is, we don't currently know in advance which babies will or will not have problems.

Even at the height of SIDS, the rate was, what, 1 in 300 babies? That's still a fairly low risk for an individual child, because he has a 299/300 chance of surviving.

It would be much fairer to talk about a "higher risk" than a "high risk".

It is good to discuss the SIDs risks and to be aware. You especially need to be aware that it is a very small risk. If there has been a case of SIDs with family or friends it can bring this very much to the front of your mind. As to the Midwife talking about it, it really depends on the context in which she discusses the subject. If she mentions it once to make you aware that is fine and part of her job to make new mums aware. OTOH if the Midwife talks about it at every visit and spends a lot of her time with you on the subject it might indicate that there is something wrong. Like she has had a family on her lists who were involved in a SIDs event or perhaps even in her own family.
It would not be right if she went on about it at great length and so caused you to worry a lot about it.

It is a very difficult subject to assimilate when you have a young baby at home and not feeling 100% sure of yourself. It could be the last straw if there are other issues causing worry.
You could try to discuss your worries with her and explain that she has worried you.