Influence of Sleep Position Experience on Ability of Prone-Sleeping Infants to Escape From Asphyxiating Microenvironments by Changing Head Position

ABSTRACT. Objective. Several studies have found that back- or side-sleeping infants who are inexperienced in prone sleeping are at much higher risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) when they turn to prone or are placed prone for sleep compared with infants who normally sleep prone. Moreover, such inexperienced in-fants are more likely to be found in the face-down posi-tion at death after being placed prone compared with SIDS infants who are experienced in prone sleeping. We hypothesized that lack of experience in prone sleeping is associated with increased difficulty in changing head position to avoid an asphyxiating sleep environment. Methods. We studied 38 healthy infants while they slept prone. Half of these were experienced and half were inexperienced in prone sleeping. To create a mildly as