Baby sleeping bags are safe for newborns is the latest advice from Red Nose, the Australian organisation founded to fund research into Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
Every parent’s greatest fear is that their baby will die and there will be no explanation. We want to place blame, or at least understand why the baby we have felt grow in-utero, given birth to, and become bonded to, is leaves us with nothing but the empty nursery and a lifetime of grief.
While the rate of SIDS has declined because of research, education campaigns and the diligence of parents to ensure they follow safe sleeping practices for their babies has saved over 9000 Australian babies in the past ten years, another 2000 parents are wondering what they could have done differently…
I often listen to parents talk about baby monitors, room temperature, sleep patterns, and baby sleeping bags. Their concerns are real and my reassurances that they are doing everything to help their baby sleep safely are never enough.
Sleeping bags (sleep sacks) for babies are one of those life-saving factors that I talk about and receive a lot of feedback on from mums. My three-year-old granddaughter still wears one of the toddler sleeping bags for her daytime sleep. She loves it.
The design of a sleeping bag is not just about aesthetics. It is highly-recommended that a baby sleeping bag has a front zipper and that it has a fitted neck and armholes. There are sleeping bags available in other countries that come with all sorts of attachments like hoods, which are not recommended.
Sleeping bags must fit baby correctly. Yes, that does mean buying a couple of different sizes – one for a newborn, another a few months later, and one more that should last for at least a year or more. The second and third sleeping bags should have adjustable lengths, either using riveted press studs or ties that are sewn into the seams. I’ve seen designs with buttons, hoods, side zippers, and all sorts of unsafe add-ons. A sleeping bag doesn’t need to be cute – it needs to be safe!
Fabric is important, and so is the temperature of the room where a baby is sleeping. As adults, we all have our preferred sleeping temperature. The room temperature, and the type of bedding we use directly impacts upon how soundly we sleep. It’s the same for babies.
I’m a huge advocate for cotton for this very reason. Cotton breathes and good quality cotton is soft, washes well and lasts a long time. It’s a natural fibre and when grown organically – without chemical pesticides – and processed with respect for environmentally conservation – cotton is the perfect choice for all baby sleeping bags, as well as baby and kids wear.
That’s not to say that other fabrics don’t have a role in sleeping bags. Microfiber – that soft fluffy fabric often used for cleaning cloths – is used for winter weight baby and toddler sleeping bags.
While microfiber is manufactured from the same materials used to make plastic – a natural byproduct of petroleum – it does make sense to use it for baby sleeping bags because it is so light, it breaths, absorbs moisture, and dries quickly. Add a cotton lining to the sleeping bag and babies can sleep safely in cold climates without the weight of additional layers.
Baby sleeping bags are rated using a European system to indicate how warm the sleeping bag is and what season they are suitable for. The higher the TOG, the warmer the sleeping bag. The TOG indicated approximately how many blankets the sleeping bag is equivalent to. Bags with rating 1.2 or below are for spring/summer use. Bags with rating 2–2.5 are for autumn/winter.
I have found that parents will often try a few different sleeping bags before they settle on one that their baby loves – helps baby settle easily and sleep well. The variety of fabrics used to make baby’s sleepwear – each with a different synthetic and/or natural fibre composition – and whether the fibre breathes, will impact on how warm a baby sleeps.
Temperature is important for sleeping babies. Australia’s climate varies widely, from tropical, temperate through to freezing. To follow Red Nose safe sleeping practices, it is almost essential to have at least one room in the house with a reliable thermostatically controlled heating and cooling system – the room a baby is sleeping in.
Personally, I am a very hot sleeper these day, so I could not use my own sleeping comfort for a baby – semi-naked in a room below 16 degrees with a very light weight doona. It would simply to unsafe for a baby.
After over a decade of feeling like I was sleeping on top of a fire on my bamboo latex mattress, I sought out the coolest mattress on the market – they have cooling technology in mattresses for people like me – and people who live in hot climates. This made me wonder about mattress for bassinets and cots.
Unfortunately, the regulations on these are very underwhelming1. If a mattress is firm and flat, so that a baby can sleep safely flat on its back, it complies with Red Nose recommendations.
The benefits of using safe baby sleeping bags – i.e. fitted neck and armholes, no hood and is the correct size for baby – are supported by an accumulation of general scientific research that draws no direct correlations between SIDS and any specific cause. However, the benefits of baby sleeping bags are that they:
- reduce the risk of bedclothes covering baby’s face
- delay baby rolling onto the tummy during sleep until baby’s past the age of peak risk of SUDI
- promote back sleeping as the zipper opens to the front
- will keep baby’s temperature at a more constant level while sleeping
One thing that mothers who have swaddled their babies instead of using a baby sleeping bag for a newborn have said, is that their baby wriggled around so much that the swaddle frequently came undone and their baby didn’t sleep well. Once these mother’s started using a baby sleeping bag, their babies slept better – which means that everyone gets better sleep.
In Australia in 2013, 117 babies died suddenly and unexpectedly, of those deaths, 54 were identified as SIDS.
The incidence of Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) in Australia generally is on the decline. Currently, it is about the same as in other Western countries – around one in every 3,000 births, or 130 babies each year. This compares to about 500 Australian babies lost to SIDS back in 1990.
These statistics sound impressive, but they are meaningless to parents who bury their child. I know from experience. My baby died during a breech birth 33 years ago. At that time, the statistics for those circumstances were 1 in 2000. I have never forgotten that I was the one that year.
- Choice – the consumer advocacy group that tests products for things like compliance with regulations and publishes the results in a magazine – that did publish their cot mattress test results in March 2017 against new firmness rating regulations for cot mattress.